A Time and Place to Reign
by VictorianChik
Summary: Sequel to A Time and Place to Thrive, 4th in the Time and Place series. The older Harry gets and the more he grows into adulthood, the more trials and tribulations he faces. However, despite his increasing powers and influence over the Wizarding world, he still needs a place to belong and to call home.
1. Prison

Harry stared at the ceiling.

He had no idea of the time – his fault, he supposed, since the pocketwatch lay in pieces on the stone floor. The others were asleep, but not a peaceful sleep. Every so often, soft whimpers would come from each of his friends, signs that the depression of Azkaban had followed them into dreamland.

Harry reached inside for the rage, the feeling of wild passion that felt like a demon moved inside him. The rage would keep him company. The rage would sooth him.

But more than that, he was hungry. All the muscle mass he had acquired demanded a lot of food – full meals, many snacks, calorie-laden drinks gulped down in ravenous hunger. And the prison was determined to starve him.

Another thing that was Snape's fault. Snape had made him change and now Harry would have to suffer hunger along with despair.

He clenched his hand into fists. This was intolerable. He couldn't submit to the oppression of Azkaban. He would remain strong.

Harry turned on his side to stare out the bars. How long would he be here? He could break his sentence up into small, manageable pieces. He used to do that during the brutal workout sessions; he had gritted his teeth and forced himself to do one more pull-up or sit-up, five more seconds of sprinting, ten more seconds of unbearable pain.

15 years. That was how many days, how many hours? Anyone could make it through an hour. 15 times about 360 to make the math easier. Simplify the numbers down to multiply them, so 10 times 36 was 360 and half of that was 180 so 540 days. Times the days by 24 to get to the hours – uh, 10,800 plus a little over 2,000, let's say 13,000 hours. That was a lot, but he could managed 13,000 hours – he had already done 10.

No, wait – Harry blinked – he had dropped a zero in the first equation. That meant it was really 130,000 hours.

The terror of that thought froze Harry. He would be stuck in this hell for that many hours, countless seconds of imprisonment, alone, numb, hungry, abandoned.

He sat up. He could feel the power taking over, stronger and stronger.

Calm down, calm down, just breathe for one second.

He looked down at his shaking hands.

If he could just have a little food – a scrap of bread with a slice of cheese and then a hunk of the roast that the house elves at the manor liked to fix for lunch or a late tea when Harry had been out flying. Just a small sandwich, a tiny taste of –

Harry froze as he watched particles swarm into his hands. Something was forming in his hands, over the rough skin and callouses.

A Dementor slammed against the window, shaking the bars.

Harry jumped, and the Dementor bashed again, but it couldn't get in. Could it sense his magic?

He looked back at his hands. A sandwich had formed, its warmth pressing against his fingers.

The Dementor hovered, but Harry lifted the sandwich up for inspection. It looked like food, and it smelled like it, too.

He closed his eyes and let the despair press at him again. The Dementor was pushing against the window, doing its best to depress the mood and chill the air. Harry felt the despair prickle at him and for a minute he was tempted to toss the food away and sink back on the bed in sobs.

He should toss it away. He should just give in and follow the rules and let himself starve. It would be a fitting way to go, thin and starved, just a bag of bones. He deserved to die after so much trouble he had caused. That would make Snape sorry.

Snape would come into the cell and see Harry's lifeless body and blank eyes and then he would feel awful. Snape would live the rest of his life in misery and regret.

Harry lifted his arm to chuck the sandwich out of reach. Then he paused.

No, suicide was not the way. If he committed suicide, he wouldn't be there to see Snape's reaction. And where was the pleasure in that?

Harry took a vicious bite out of the sandwich, smirking at the fuss the Dementor was making outside. He wasn't going to go quietly – not after everything Snape had put him through.

No, he wouldn't die.

He would go crazy.

As he ate the sandwich, the idea grew stronger and more attractive. This was the place to embrace insanity and do stuff that he wasn't allowed to do.

The few times he had acted out were the bright spots of his life – the times he lost his temper and shouted, the times he let his magic go, that one glorious time Snape let him unleash his rage on the dining room and smash everything to bits.

He was Harry effing Potter and he could go crazy better than everyone else. Azkaban couldn't stop his magic – such weak and puny charms to control the prisoners – and it couldn't stop him from embracing madness. And he wouldn't let anyone know.

The morning light was coming in, turning their cell into an eerie grey that wasn't dark nor light, but a weird glow in between.

Harry watched the light grow, and eventually sunlight shone through the one window, the bars making rectangles of light on the stones. Of the five bars, the middle one was slightly crooked, bowing out to the left, just slightly, but enough to offset the symmetry of the others.

Harry looked away. He did not understand why the crookedness bothered him. He had thought the impulse for precision should have been quashed after living his childhood with Aunt Petunia who needed everything straight and proper. Certainly, life at Hogwarts sprawled in crooked corners, angled staircases, chaos of moving pictures, and general unevenness with kooky characters and goofy creatures.

The only other person who needed precision was –

Harry broke off the thought, but already images of Snape and the manor had risen in his mind. The potions closet with jars and vials set half an inch apart from each other, an inch from the edge of the shelves. The ordered precision of furniture and wall décor in each room. Even the secret lab past the sleeping plants had an order to it despite the cacophony of papers, books, and images.

Snape liked order and meticulousness – every time he set a parchment and quill in front of Harry the items were straight. Harry had shrugged it off as Snape being Snape, Snape needing control, Snape being in charge.

Harry stared at the patch of sunlight.

Enjoy the chaos, he told himself. You can't go mad if you keep things in order. All the bars should be crooked.

Eventually, the others woke. They groaned softly as they came to, Draco muttering, "Nothing but nightmares."

"I was being chased most of the night," Ginny admitted. "Ron, what about you?"

Ron gave a low growl as he swung his legs out of bed.

"Are you speaking to us?" Harry asked in Ron's direction.

"Who else can I talk to?" Ron growled as he stomped to the faucet. "But rest assured I have nothing but hatred for all of you. You, my ex-best friend, my traitorous sister, and old One Eye over there."

"What did I do?" Draco asked.

"You exist. And if you had lost the other eye, they'd have put you in St. Mungo's where we'd be rid of you."

"You want me blind?"

"I want you to shut up!" Ron turned the water full blast to drown out anything else Draco might have said.

But as it turned out, the sound of water afforded them all a little privacy each to use the toilet behind the nook, to get dressed, and to brush their teeth. Harry followed suit and turned his faucet on, careful not to watch Ginny as she tried to dress behind her nook.

That was something Ginny had given up when taking Hermione's place – the comfort of privacy, not even having another girl to sympathize with. Girls' bodies were different, Harry reflected, with a flush of his cheeks. They needed things and other stuff and what if she didn't get any privacy in the showers and she had to have hygienic items and they humiliated her by denying them?

The bars were shaking before Harry realized how upset he was at the prospect of Ginny being humiliated. He sat down, fully dressed, and stared down at his hands. Even if he could broach the subject with her, what could he possibly promise? He had no way to bargain better treatment for her, no means of navigating a system where he could act as the protector, her hero, anything other than a fellow wretched prisoner.

The clothes were gray: a gray shirt, gray trousers, a gray sweater, gray socks, and gray socks. They were all too big, hanging off Ginny's shoulders and sliding down Draco's hips as they tried to tug the clothing into place.

Finberg came in, looking especially gleeful. "Good morning, children. Rested are we? Breakfast will be up shortly. Then it's kitchen duty for you two," he pointed at Ron and Draco, "and floor scrubbing for you," his gaze settled on Ginny. "Funny, I thought you had darker hair, not that ugly red mop."

"It changes in the light," she looked away. "I'm sure it will look different on the front of the papers."

"I don't read the papers," Finberg scoffed. "Bunch of nonsense. Chores for you three and then showers. This afternoon you'll get some yard time. But you, our special guest," he grinned at Harry, "you can rot alone."

Finberg looked around, as if waiting for someone to challenge him. No one did so he swept out with a sneer.

Breakfast was served by two prisoners whose grey hair and grey expression sent a thrill of horror through Harry as he watched them trudge in and leave trays of food in front of Ginny, Ron, and Draco.

One of the prisoners looked at Harry. "This is for you." He pulled a dead rat out of his pocket and chucked it inside Harry's cell.

"You can't starve him," Ginny protested. "We're here to serve prison sentences, not to be starved to death."

"Fine, no food for you either," the prisoner reached down for Ginny's tray.

"No," Harry leaned against his own bars, "no, don't. I'm not hungry. Let her eat. If I get hungry, I'll eat the rat." He stooped and picked it, trying to ignore how awful and damp it felt in his hands, fur clammy and body stiff.

The prisoners glared, but they trudged out, shutting the door behind them.

"Don't stick up for me," Harry dropped the rat and went to wash his hands. "They'll just use it against you."

Ginny hesitated, worry creasing her freckled forehead. "I – I did promise Snape I would look out for you. I'm supposed to take care of you because –"

A roar of anger came from Ron, followed by a sharp, "Shut up! Just shut up!" as Ron grabbed his own tray of food and attacked it.

Ginny tried to give Harry part of her food, but he declined, declaring that he felt sick after touching the rat. He lay on his bed, listening to them eat, and when Finberg returned to collect them, Harry pretended to have fallen asleep.

Once they were gone, Harry got up and paced around, debating how to use his alone time. He played around with creating breakfast, but his attempts at making porridge – rich and creamy the way it had been at the manor – failed and left him with a handful of gooey mush. He dropped that into the toilet and went back to work, closing his eyes and concentrating on the taste of something delicious, something cool and satisfying. When he opened his eyes, he found himself holding a large serving of chocolate pudding between his two hands, the coldness seeping into his fingers.

Lacking a spoon and a plate, he begin licking the pudding up, slurping like an animal. He supposed he could try to pull together a plate or bowl, but he didn't know what do with those items after he was done. Extra food could be flushed away, but he had no idea how to get rid of a plate other than smashing it to bits. His newfound powers might work in reverse, but … Harry suddenly had the vision of wishing a plate in his hands away and accidentally disintegrating his fingers. Ugh, scary. Eating with his hands would suffice.

After he finished and washed his hands, he debated his next course of action. Going mad was first and foremost on his list, but he had to approach that slowly, to let it burn up moments of darkness and despair. The feeling of oppression hung in the air, thanks to the Dementors outside, but even Harry knew that he couldn't manage going completely insane in one day. People had to take their time, to allow their quirks to grow weirder, scarier, more threatening, until moments of wild madness became inevitable and everyone freaked out.

The longer he stayed in the room alone, the more he realized how little solitary time he had had in the last six months. Even in the manor over the summer he had never felt alone. Snape was there and overbearing of course, but the house elves had checked up on him frequently and there were chores and lessons to occupy his time.

He supposed he could read if he could get his hands on a book, but guessing that Finberg was less likely to provide reading materials than he was providing food, Harry abandoned that idea as well.

He did a round of exercises, stopping after every two dozen reps to listen for the sounds of his friends coming back. The door stayed shut.

He managed to create a few rolls to eat and he tried butter to go with them, but the butter was off, closer to thick paste than the fluffy spread he had eaten at Snapdragon Manor. At one point, he put the dead rat and broken pieces of the pocketwatch under the bed.

If he had a brush, he would have scrubbed the floor, just to give himself something to do.

The sunlight on the floor moved slowly and then disappeared as noon approached. Harry tried to pace, but he couldn't manage more than seven full steps in any direction. If he only had access to the whole room –

He hesitated with his hands on the bars. His friends could be back at any time, and if Finberg was with them, there would be trouble. He wasn't supposed to be able to do magic in Azkaban, but they hadn't noticed so far . . .

Harry backed up from the bars. Maybe later, once he had given into madness and could blame it on a bout of insanity.

He didn't actually realize what he was creating, but sheets of parchment began forming on his bed. Harry picked them cautiously, flipping them, but seeing nothing odd on the front or back, he set them on the stone floor and sat down beside them.

So he could write. Already a quill was appearing beside the paper. But write what? Hermione was the one who liked writing. Hermione could fill up pages with lists or essays or ideas, taking pleasure in the order and rule-setting that the written word afforded. She loved concreteness of writing; she had looked immensely satisfied when rules had been posted around Hogwarts. Harry had a suspicion that Hermione had actually liked Delores Umbridge and her penchant for rules, at least in the beginning. Hermione did care about people, but it rivaled her need for knowledge and order.

Strange that she had fallen in love with Ron who existed in the sloppiness betweenness of life, never quite brilliant or stupid, not lazy or proactive. Balancing each other out.

But she abandoned them, choosing freedom over love. Selfish, just like Snape.

Harry picked up the quill; he supposed he could move it with magic, but writing manually would take up more time. And he knew exactly who he would write to.

 _Dear Snivelus,_

He smirked at the meanness of his opening, the need to be horrid from the very start.

 _I am writing only to tell you what an utter failure you are. I don't have enough paper to describe all your areas of failure so let me start with a short list. You like lists. I've grown to like them too. Let me describe to you all the ways in which I find you lacking._

 _1\. Your one job was to keep me safe. You failed at that. Even if I ignore the whole trial nonsense, you took my scar so you could defeat Voldemort. It turned out you couldn't. All those days of planning and preparing, and you got scattered in the first few minutes of confrontation. How does it feel to walk around so powerless?_

 _2\. You are a horrible teacher. I learned ways to get around you, to trick and manipulate you, to hurt you. I had to, you were just so pathetic in your attempts to control me. How small and useless you must feel._

 _3\. My father was right to bully you. You asked for it, hanging around, wanting to have friends. It's so pitiful it makes me sick. You've always wanted to be more, to be better than what you were, but you'll always be the ugly kid without any friends until the end._

He paused to adjust his glasses and realized that he was crying.

Not the animalistic rage like last night, but tears born of betrayal and hurt. He hurt and he wanted Snape to hurt just as much as him.

He looked at the list. It was full of vitriol and made little logical sense in its progression, but he didn't care. He just wanted to put down all those awful, hateful things, and he couldn't bother with being coherent, not now. Snape needed to feel pain, to understand the despair so alive in Harry that it must be ignited in someone else.

He went back to writing, and the longed he worked, the more he pictured the stark agony on Snape's face as the man would read the letter. With each new line, Snape's eyes would widen and his mouth would drop slightly open, his distress growing with each fresh insult.

Harry listed his failures with gleeful malice, ignoring the tears that continued to well up and fall sullenly. Snape had never been wanted by his parents, Snape was incapable of love, Snape wasn't a good Deatheaster or a good spy, Snape had set up a whole lab to study Harry and couldn't figure out any of his results, Snape was ugly, he was stupid, his house was stupid, Harry hoped it burnt to the ground.

The longer he wrote, the more incoherent his words became. He would start with an insult that turned into a threat that faded into rambling: _You'll never find anyone to love you because you are worthless and I'm going to destroy you because of it because I don't care and I never have and you knew I knew I never did though you never, ever did!_

At one point, his tears blinded him so much that he had to stop and sob for a few seconds, his own cries pitiful and disgusting to his ears, before picking up the quill again. The ink stayed steady as he wrote, but changed from blue to red and even black depending on his rage and despair.

Outside, the Dementor breezed back and forth in contentment.

He had filled up four pages when he couldn't stand it a second longer. He stuffed the paper and quill under his mattress and collapsed on the bed, sick with emotion and horribly lonely. Where were his friends?

He must have fallen asleep because the door opening jolted him awake, and he saw Ron, Draco, and Ginny drag themselves in and each get locked up. Their hair showed damp streaks, but they looked clean so they must have ended with a shower.

Once their escorts left, Harry sat up. "Where have you been? It's been hours."

"Shut up," Ron growled as he sprawled on his bed.

"I agree," Draco fell back as well.

"Hours of chores," Ginny leaned against the wall and sank down on the floor, resting her forehead against one bar of her cell. "Floor after floor to scrub."

"Thousands of dishes to wash," Draco stared up at the ceiling. "They haven't washed up for weeks. Food gets delivered, but no one cleans up. They save that for the new blood. My hands are raw."

"They let us eat," Ginny went on, her face blank, "then back to work. When I couldn't lean over anymore, they took us to the yard."

"It's not really a yard," Draco said. "It's part of the roof under about fifteen Dementors. We had to walk around for exercise. A big circle, round and round, just keep going."

"I was numb by then," Ginny said. "I couldn't even think. They let us stop when Ron started crying."

"Shut up!" Ron snapped at her.

She turned big, tragic eyes on him. "I wanted to cry, I did. But I couldn't remember how. I kept moving, like I was under the Imperious Curse or something just as awful. Are they cursing us?"

"No curse," Draco told her. "It's just the Dementors. They take all your emotions, but they feed on your despair. That's why people waste away here."

"I'm sorry," Harry mumbled, as a loss for what else to say. His hours of loneliness seemed pale in comparison to their drudgery, but he felt raw for having to swallow his own suffering. Maybe he could make a list about them, too . . .

"It wasn't over then," Ginny went on. "They took us to the showers and sprayed us with cold water. I couldn't breathe at one point. Snape told me it would be hard, but I had no idea."

"It's just the beginning," Draco said, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself. "It's always rough in the beginning. They get a rise out of tormenting us. Don't respond – just take it, and eventually they will lose interest."

Ginny nodded, looking as if she wanted to believe him.

"That's why I used to go after all of you," Draco went on. "With Crabbe and Goyle, I mean. You fought back and it's always fun to rile someone up. When you reacted, it made it all worth it."

"I have never been so happy to remember that you lost an eye," Ron said. "I have this scar across my face, but you are half-blinded."

"I was only trying to point out –"

"Shut up!"

No one spoke much after that. Despair fell over the room as they all took to their beds despite the sun barely setting. It couldn't be much later than 5 o'clock, Harry thought, but he saw no reason to mention it.

The depression of the Dementors took away the need to talk, Harry realized the longer they sat in stark silence. To stay silent, to be alone in your own head, to be near to other people but not wanting to talk – that was the real agony.

Food came later, and this time Harry got toast, browned and hard as a rock. He nibbled at it while the others groaned and slouched towards the food, stuffing it in their mouths as quickly as they could without choking.

Harry leaned against the bars toward Ginny. "Hey," he whispered, "talk to me."

She looked up, and in that moment, he was struck by how beautiful she was, even in her exhaustion. Her eyes were endless pits of feeling, her mouth had a thousand expressions, her skin so pretty – he just wanted to touch her, to feel not alone.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Not tonight. I promise tomorrow I'll try. But tonight, I just can't. I know you were here all alone, but I can't feel sorry for you right now."

The need to connection with her disappeared in a hot way of resentment and anger. He needed to hurt her, too.

"No one asked you here," Harry hissed, gripping the bars. "You came because you were angry at being left behind before. We left you behind because you serve no purpose. You aren't worth anything to us."

Something hit the side of his head. Staggering back at the sharp pain, he looked down to see a spoon on the ground. Ron was against his own bars, clenching his empty plate and knife.

"You say another word to my sister and I'll sent the knife over next. I will spend every spare seconds trying to hurt you - I don't care if you spent the next fifteen years in the infirmary here. You leave Ginny alone."

Harry didn't speak.

Ron shoved his plate and utensil out on the empty tray before retreating to his bed.

Draco and Ginny also went to bed.

Harry was left alone with the thought that Ron was most the noble person in Azkaban and he, the hero of the Wizarding world, was the most contemptible.

The next morning was even worse after a long night of restless sleep and plaguing nightmares. Finberg came to collect the other three, and Harry was left alone again.

He made food and ate, trying to decide if he were getting better or worse at creating breakfast from nothing.

He thought about writing, about spewing more hatred, but instead he stare up at the stones and the window, trying to ignore the crooked bar.

But the bar wouldn't be ignored.

He got off the bed and went to the barred door of his cell. He just thought about the lock turning and it did.

In the space between the cells, Harry went up to the bars. He could see some of the sea and sky beyond the glass, but his intent was to straighten the bar.

He put his hands on it.

A Dementor flew up to the window, agitated.

With a smirk, Harry whispered, " _Expecto Patronus_ " and sent a bolt of light towards the dark, hulking creature.

It whirled back with a screech.

"Come get me," he grinned. "Come on, you ugly rotters. Take on the great Harry Potter."

Another bolt, and another, and the Dementor reared back. Several other Dementors showed up, but they backed away.

Satisfied, Harry straightened the bar with his hands and a little magic.

Then he heard footsteps.

He barely had time to get back to his cell and lock himself in before Finberg burst in, flanked by two burly prisoners that Harry hadn't seen before. The man on the right carried chains. The one on the left had a large closed box.

"The Dementors reported magically use against them," Finberg said.

"Just now?" Harry hedged. Maybe the Dementors could only sense magic when it was used against them.

"Yes, they indicated that it came from this cell. Did you use magic?"

"I thought magic use was suppressed here, like it doesn't work?" Harry hazarded.

"There are wards here," Finberg's eyes were glittering with malice. "But sometimes, in their despair, prisoners release more magic than the wards can suppress. It doesn't happen often."

"Because the wards are so powerful," Harry nodded. The more information he learned about Azkaban, the better; it might come in handy later.

"Yes, the wards do win. But we also punish prisoners for rebellion. A good reminder in case you can't control yourself."

"I'm sorry. It was an accident," Harry lied. What did it matter anyway? Anything to appease Finberg. "I was so hungry and uh – lonely."

"You'll be getting food tonight," Finberg said as if he were bestowing a precious gift. "But for now, you'll be punished."'

"I'm ready to do chores. I'll work without complaint."

"Ha," Finberg smirked, and Harry wanted nothing more than to send a wave of painful magic right at his face. "It's more than that. Hands out for the manacles."

Finberg opened the door, warning, "If you attempt to resist, Branes will toss a controlling potion over you. It works like the Imperious Curse and we'll control you then. If I feel the smallest bit of magic –"

"No, no magic," Harry put his hands out.

"Jibb has the only key to chains," Finberg nodded to the man on the right. "If he lose it, you'll spend the rest of your stay dragging around iron chains."

"I understand." Harry held still as Jibb grabbed his arm and fitted the metal cuff over his wrist and locked it with a small gold key. The same happened with his other arm, and then Jibb pulled the chains and Harry followed obediently.

The four of them went out and headed for the stairs.

Azkaban's version of the Great Staircase was morose as ever though it was slightly easier going down the stairs instead of going up. The Dementors hovering at the top stopped moving and trained their empty black hoods on Harry as he was taken down the numerous stairs to the bottom.

"In a moment, all the prisoners will be released so they can come watch your punishment," Finberg said.

"Aren't you worried about a riot?" Harry asked. They had reached the bottom of the stairs and Jibb pulled him towards a metal stand with hooks about nine feet overhead.

"They can riot all they like," Finberg shrugged. "There's nowhere to go. The wards prevent Apparating, and until you can swim fourteen miles while avoiding Dementors . . . well, prisoners are welcomed to try. Riots ten to stop when their food stops coming and the Dementors are allowed in their cells."

Jibb pulled a ladder over and he went to attach the end of the chains at the top.

The sound of doors unlocking and footsteps came from every floor above. Harry looked up fearfully and then back at Finberg, too afraid to ask what his punishment would be.

"Normally, we punish with a bullwhip or a cane," Finberg went to Branes and opened the box. "But you're under-age so I'm going to use a strap."

The box held various items, but next to the subduing potion lay a long, wide leather strap. Finberg took it out and rang his hand over it lovingly.

"I'll let you keep your shorts on. You're allowed to scream as much as you like, but keep your voice. At the end, you will thank me for punishing you or I will just keep going."

"But –" Harry's arms were jerked up, cutting off his protests. He was so stretched out he had to get on tiptoes to get any slack in the chains

Jibb came down the ladder and removed a pair of thick iron scissors from the box. He grabbed a handful of Harry's hair to force his head down and slid the scissors against his neck, hacking through the back collar of Harry's shirt. Jibb cut the clothes off him, leaving him quivering in skimpy shorts.

Harry looked up.

All around the balconies of the floor, prisoners had gathered. They were all looking down, some cheering, some impassive, some sad. Harry thought he saw Lucius Malfoy up at the top, but he couldn't be sure.

Looking down, he saw Ron, Draco, and Ginny come in from a side door, goaded on by other prisoners. Ginny held a pail of dirty water and a scrub brush, but her lips were trembling as she watched him. Ron stared at him dully, and Draco leaned back against the stone wall in fatigue.

"Let's begin," Finberg turned to the waiting audience.


	2. Pain

Harry braced himself for the first strike.

In the split second of silent, he reminded himself that he had withstood pain before. All those nights of physical training, those moments of making himself go on when every fiber of his being screamed for him to stop, the pain of punishments that Snape inflicted on him – he could bear whatever nonsense Finberg wanted to deal out.

The strap hit him. It landed high on his right hip, the tip of the leather reaching around to grab at the flesh just above the waistband of his shorts.

Harry caught his breath and his eyes went wide.

The second blow landed on his left shoulder blade - hard, careless, and brutal.

In that airless second where pain blossomed over him and Harry forgot to breathe, three things became strikingly obvious to him.

First, Finberg was not aiming with any precision and clearly did not care what he hit as long as he hit hard enough for the sound to echo through the stairway.

Second, Harry had never realized just how mindful Snape had been about handling him whenever he had physically reprimanded his adopted son. Fifteen seconds ago, Harry (if he had been forced to admit anything about the embarrassing times Snape had taken him in hand) would have claimed that Snape could be a brute with his hard smacks or that wretched hairbrush. He would have said Snape didn't care how much he hurt his son as long as Harry felt remorseful at the end.

But after two strikes at the hands of a sadist who wanted to inflict as much pain as possible, the difference between stern discipline and a brutal beating had never been so obvious to Harry. Snape had maintained such strong control over himself when delivering reprimand, and though his blows had been sharp and loud, Snape had always made sure he smacked only at Harry's rear and the top of his thighs. Not too high as to risk hitting Harry's tailbone or kidneys, and spreading out smacks in even distribution.

In those punishments, pain had mingled with embarrassment and guilt over upsetting Snape, and any tears that resulted usually came from the purging of Harry's emotional upheaval rather than true physical agony. Usually, any signs of a spanking disappeared within hours, and by the next day, Harry's body was back to normal. (Oddly enough, often the things the most sore were his neck and shoulders as he had the tendency to tense up whenever he got in trouble. He probably should have told Snape that, but it was awful enough to have to endure a punishment; he couldn't find the nerve to admit he was so wound up inside that he couldn't unclench his muscles whenever Snape got onto him.)

Third, Harry didn't know how he was going to control his magic under such a violent assault.

The lashing continued with the strap landing wherever Finberg swung it. After six blows, the man started huffing from the exertion and the blows became more erratic.

In a pain-filled, oxygen-deprived haze, Harry tried to remember if Snape had ever been out of breath while meting out discipline. Snape had been breathing hard occasionally, but that usually came from how upset he was at Harry's behavior. And Snape seemed to find plenty of air to lecture while he smacked.

Back in the summer, Snape had been shorter with him, more prone to fits of anger and temper at small provocations. But he had changed. He and Harry had both changed.

The belt landed on Harry's back in a place that had been hit twice already. Harry's eyes filled with tears, and when Finberg struck there again, Harry let out a gasp.

The pressure of magic began to build, like water swelling behind a poorly-made dam. Stronger, tighter, angrier.

A blow landed on his spine with the tip of the strap biting into the back of his neck.

The memory came back hard and fast – without warning and so real Harry almost thought he was there.

The moment he woke up from the potion Snape had given him, a potion that let him experience realistic life with Sirius. Harry had woken up furious with Snape and had started throwing stuff and swearing as his anger had grown. He had launched himself at Snape, really wanting to hurt him, but Snape had avoided his blows and eventually held him secure so he couldn't hurt either of them.

If he had been able to get free, would he have wanted to inflict the kind of pain that Finberg was inflicting? Would he, Harry, be able to hurt someone so badly?

More blows, more pain – that look on Snape's face when Harry had started crying when he had realized that life with Sirius would not have been as magical and wonderful as Harry had imagined.

Three strikes to his upper legs that stung horribly – in that moment in the study of Snapdragon Manor, Snape had been worried. Up until that moment, Snape had shown impatience or disgust, ready to bark out a short quip. But then at that instant, with the broken items on the floor and Harry's face damp with tears and sweat, Snape had shown another emotion. He had been concerned in a way only a parent could.

He missed Snape.

A jolt of magic left Harry. It spiraled up and struck the winding staircase twelve feet up.

The prisoners on the stairs gasped, moving back as ripples of worry moved upward through the throngs of onlookers.

But Finberg let out a snarl of rage, spittle spraying out his mouth as he swung harder and faster, raining down blows that that felt like a solid wave of pain.

"Stop!" Ginny's voice came from somewhere. "He's had enough!"

Harry's arms began to cramp as he pulled against the chains. He felt on the brink of fainting, and he wished the world would go black to let him escape.

More magic left him, crackled across the floor and thudding into the beams of wood and stone that held up the stairs. The hum of worry from other prisoners grew and the air of despair thickened as the Dementors began to move as well, both outside and near the ceiling far above.

"I'll get all the magic out of you," Finberg brought the strap down on the side of Harry's ribs. "I'll carve out your spine and cripple you. I'll see that you drag yourself on your hands for the rest of your life, you damn boy."

Finberg drove his fist into Harry's back, slamming into bruised, raw flesh. He drew back to punch again, but then Harry's magic exploded.

The stone of the floor rose, the walls trembled, prisoners started screaming and ducking for cover, glass broke from two windows, and the entire prison hummed with unbridled power.

The chains holding him snapped like thread and he fell down, but his magic started pushing him up immediately.

Cries above head screamed for help: "He's going to kill us!" "He's going to sink the whole place!" Make him stop! Make him stop!"

Harry couldn't see as he felt every fiber of his body throb with a need to hurt others and heal himself. He wavered between succumbing to darkness and setting everyone in the prison on fire. As his magic grew, tumbling in on itself as it doubled, tripled, expanded, he knew he could kill every last person in Azkaban so very easily. He would only have to think the Killing Curse, and they would start dropping like flies.

He had risen several inches of the ground, floating on his own power, and he was ready to slaughter every –

Something slammed into his face, knocking his head back.

He opened his eyes to see Ginny standing there with the bucket in her hand, the bucket she had just hit him with.

He considered it. His lips were aching to mouth the Killing Curse, _Avada Kedavra_ – just to say it and watch her die.

She met his eyes. And then she started crying. She covered her face with one grimy hand, and she gave a horrible sob, a sound of hopelessness and need.

Harry stopped. His magic disappeared, dropping stone, glass, and other debris to the ground.

Looking up at the prisoners, the horrified faces, the floating Dementors, he suddenly swayed. Draco and Ron rushed forward to catch him, grabbing him before he could hit the ground. They each took a side and moved his arms to rest on their shoulders.

"Look what you did!" Ginny screamed at Finberg. "You nearly killed us all. Do you think you can do whatever you like to him, the one that killed Voldemort? He inherited all of his power, and you think you can beat it out of him?"

Draco and Ron glanced at each other, but Ginny threw her bucket on the ground.

"You are going to take us to our rooms," her voice grew stronger as she stepped towards Finberg, "but you are going to bring us food, and clothes, and some measly comforts like books and papers. We will work reasonable shifts to do our share of the chores, but you will deliver our letters to our parents and you will let them come visit us. And if you don't," Ginny reached out and grabbed the front of Finberg's shirt, "I will have Harry remove your skull one square inch at a time and," she lowered her voice to a deadly growl, "I will enjoy your screams."

She let him with a push and then went to join the other three. Harry had barely heard her threat as he hung between Draco and Ron, but he tensed when they turned towards the stair.

"It's all right," Ginny murmured as she led them away. "We're going to take you upstairs and put you to bed."

Each step must have hurt, Harry thought numbly, but his entire body hurt too much for him to notice each jarring movement.

The whole stairway was silent as they ascended, prisoners moving out of their way, but no one offering to help.

Once in their cells, Draco and Ron maneuvered Harry down his bed, but Ginny stopped at the doorway to face Finberg and Jibb who had followed them up.

"You can lock us in at night, but you are not locking our cells. I'm going to take care of Harry. I want clean cloths, soap, and a basin of boiling water. And a bunch of soft towels."

When Finberg didn't reply immediately, Ginny pressed her lips together. "If I don't tend to him, his magic will try to heal him. And who knows what it will damage while it mends him back together."

Finberg gave a short nod and left with Jibb.

Draco and Ron got Harry to the bed, and he was vaguely aware of them positioning him on his stomach on his bed.

"What should we do now?" Ron asked, shifting from foot to foot. "I mean, we have to do something."

"About Harry?" Draco asked. "Or Finberg? Or our sentence?"

"This is the time we make our demands," Ron said. "Ginny was brilliant down there, but we need to calculate, bargain, design our next moves. What if Finberg tries to strike back?"

"But we can't overplay our hand," Draco said. "He could try to poison us. Or lead a revolt that ends with us beaten even worse."

"Right. He was trying to make an example of us, but he lost in the end. People who lose are dangerous."

"We aren't going to make absurd demands," Ginny reached over to gently stroke Harry's hair. "All we want is to be treated like decent people. When Finberg returns, ask that you and Draco can go to the showers and clean up. I'll stay with Harry."

Harry let their words float above him. He kept thinking about deep, beautiful sleep that would let him escape the pain that radiated from his neck down to his calves. He couldn't even bring himself to reach back and touch any of the welts that had marked him so brutally.

He didn't realize when Finberg came back or when Draco and Ron left, but he was aware when Ginny pressed a warm, damp cloth to his back.

"Ah, no," he tried to angle away.

"Shh, shh," she dabbed again. "A few places are bleeding just the least bit. I want you to breath calmly and let your magic begin the healing. Not too fast though. I'm going to clean you up though so you need to stay still."

Harry tried to concentrate on healing, but his magic had been soundly depleted and he couldn't manage more than to dull the end of pain. To further his torment, Ginny wouldn't leave him alone. She insisted on cleaning off each bit of bruised skin and toweling it dry.

Every time he winced or groaned, she soothed him, murmuring, "It's fine. I'm almost done. There's a good boy."

His body was on fire with pain, but inside he held onto the feeling of relief that came with being taken care of. He could let that feeling grow inside, a calming counter to the murderous rage he had felt downstairs. He almost wished for a moment that she would pet his hair again and he could concentrate on the soothing touch rather than the hot pain that kept throbbing off over him.

Eventually, she finished and covered him up. He thought he heard Draco and Ron return, but he collapsed into sleep before they could say anything.

His dreams were awful – filled with dark shadows and the unease of whispered evil. In the middle of the night, Ginny woke him up and made him drink some cold water.

He gulped it down and tried to sleep, but his rest was so painful that he couldn't sink into really deep sleep.

Fortunately, by morning his magic had returned, and he felt the healing process begin, if slowly.

Ginny brought him food and Harry, wrapped in a blanket, sat up gingerly and accepted a bowl of porridge and a piece of toast with a mashed egg on top.

"This tastes so good," he admitted between bites. "I – I pulled together stuff to eat yesterday, but I didn't want to let you know."

"I found crumbs of something," Ginny nodded. "And I found the papers where you wrote to Snape. I'm – I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," Harry muttered.

She nodded.

Harry went back to sleep shortly after, and the rest of the day passed in quiet peace as Draco and Ron wrote letters, read, and talked in low tones with each other. They each left for a few hours to complete chores, but when they returned, all reports were positive.

"It turns out almost everyone hated the way Finberg was running this place," Ron said upon his return. "Each floor is coming up with ways to assign chores and the whole prison is going to petition for better food from the mainland."

Harry didn't reply. Even if Azkaban had world-class dining with palace luxuries, it was still a prison and he couldn't leave for 15 years.

By the next day, Harry was almost complete healed, but he saw no reason to celebrate. Finberg let him down to the showers and he stood with his front to the spray and let water drip over the last marks of bruises on his back, rear, and legs.

He had just returned to their cells when Jibb came in with a message. "Visitors for Weasley."

Ron looked up. "Really?"

"People claiming to be your parents and sister," Jibb said. "Put shoes on and meet me in the hall."

Ron watched Jibb leave and then he looked at Ginny. "But you're my-"

"Do you think it's Hermione in disguise?" she asked. "No one here really looks at newspapers and one girl going to Azkaban can pass for another for all the Dementors care."

"I get to see Hermione?" Ron said. He made a dash for his shoes and nearly fell over as he tried to walk and put them on as he rushed for the door.

"You don't want to see your parents?" Harry asked.

Ginny shrugged. "Maybe later. But it might look odd for the girl who is supposed to be Hermione Granger to be eager to see Ron Weasley's parents?"

Draco said nothing.

Later Ron came back, trying his best to look casual but unable to hide his grin. "She's fine. She's fine. She's so sorry she didn't tell me about her plan, but it's a good plan. She's working with Dad on a plea bargain to get Ginny and me out of here in a few months on a work detail for the Ministry to help rehabilitate children of Deatheaters and keep the next generation from turning to the Dark Arts. Once we get the release, she and Ginny will switch back and no one will ever know about it."

Harry saw Draco start to say something, but then stop himself. Ron was looking happy for the first time in days so Harry didn't voice the questions pounding in his head: _But what about us? You and Ginny will get out, but what about Draco and me? What's the plan for us?_

Ginny went to Ron's side of the cell room, sitting on his bed to ask him questions about their parents. Normally, Harry would have wandered over to listen, but he laid back on his bed and closed his eyes, focusing on the sound of the ocean and the feeling of coldness as several Dementors hovered outside, trying to dampen Ron's good mood.

The next day, Draco had a visitor, an old woman named Mrs. Gump, Finberg said. Draco went away in confusion, but came back an hour later and reported,

"It's was Mother in disguise. She was under Polyjuice Potion, but no one bothered her."

Harry got off his bed and went to Draco. "What news does she have?"

They were alone in the cell, Ron and Ginny having gone to work in the kitchen. Draco sat on his bed and explained,

"Since Hermione is working with the Wesley to get Ron and Ginny out, Mother's distancing herself from everyone. She wants me out and she's afraid if she's seen conferring with anyone else, she's compromising my freedom. She has information on the Deatheaters and Father has so many Dark Arts objects in the manor that she has several bargaining ploys. Right now, she is in discussion with several Ministry members to get my time reduced if she testifies against Father and other Deatheaters and reveals every last illegal object the manor holds."

"How much time reduced?"

"Right now, she's got them down to a year, but she said she wasn't going on the stand until it was down to a month, two at the most. She knows the Ministry will get anxious and that it's important for them to put far worse criminals in Azkaban than me. The fact that I lost my eye helps, and she might even have me testify as I was there when the first wave of Deatheaters arrived in Diagon Alley."

A cold feeling wrapped around Harry's chest. If Ron, Ginny, and Draco all left Azkaban and he was here alone . . .

"That's wonderful," Harry heard himself saying. "Just smashing how much she's working for you. I'm sure you will get out soon."

"Snape's going to come through for you."

"Did she say that? Did she say what he was doing?"

"No, she hasn't spoken to him since the trial. But he's bound to have a plan."

Harry managed a smile and a nod and then returned to his side of the cell.

The next day Ron and Ginny received letters. Finberg delivered them with a scowl, muttering that they shouldn't get used to people caring about them on the outside, but he then left.

"Mum wrote me," Ginny said to Harry. "Come sit with me and we can read it together."

Ron was on his own bed, staring at his letter with such intensity that Harry knew it had to be from Hermione. As Harry sat down next to Ginny, he knew that while she might share the contents of her mail, Ron would never share any letter he got from Hermione – not now, not ever.

Mrs. Weasly's letter was mainly instructive, things like tending to clothes and grooming, making sure she stayed warm enough, try to get fresh food if she could. The letter had four blue squares stuck to the bottom of the page which Ginny noticed and explained,

"Oh, those are meal squares. You put on the ground, drop water over them, and say _Amplifico_ and they grow into fuller size dinners. Mum must want each of us to have one."

Harry commented that it was so thoughtful of her mother to send them, but the coldness remained in his chest.

The cell door opened a few hours later, and Finberg came in. He seemed twice as angry as usual and clutched one hand on his nose where a little blood seeped between his fingers.

"Get up, Potter," Finberg snapped. "You have a visitor."

"Me?" Harry asked blankly.

"I said you weren't allowed visitors, but he . . . wouldn't take no for an answer. Get yourself up and follow me or so help me –"

Harry followed Finberg out and went towards the stairs. His body had healed and he didn't feel any pain, but he steered wide of Finberg just in case the man felt a need to lash out.

Harry's heartbeat increased with each step as he contemplated who had come to visit him. Surely it had to be Snape, but maybe Snape was in disguise. And what would Harry say to him?

Finberg led him to a room that might pass as a sitting room or what would have been a sitting room in the 1800s: stiff mahogany furniture and ugly reddish carpet and hideous drapes. Candles lit the dark corners, and a lone window looked out over the grayish sky, letting in cold light.

But sitting in an armchair in a dark suit with a crystal-handled walking cane beside him was Gringwad.


	3. A Visitor

Harry stood still, weighing his options.

It might be Snape in disguise, but the fact that he had chosen to be Gringwad was problematic because where would Snape have gotten a bit of Gringwad to switch into him?

And if it was Gringwad, how on earth had he come to Azkaban? He hadn't shown up at the trial, and Harry wasn't sure, but he guessed there was a penalty for not showing up when the Ministry called.

And most galling of all, Harry knew that Snape would be a thousand times more proficient at that moment than Harry could ever be. Snape, with his spy background and measured responses and political intrigue, would know just what to say to figure out the situation. Snape would have plans and strategies and be five steps ahead, and that all made Harry feel awkward and slightly stupid.

So he said the only thing that he could think of – "What are you doing here?"

Gringwad's expression stayed neutral. "I came to see you."

Arg, that told Harry nothing! He tried to counter. "Well, I don't want to see you."

Once the words had left his lips, he realized how stupid they sounded, like a cross child sulking.

And of course Gringwad wouldn't let a stupid response go. "Then feel free to leave."

Harry wished he could, wished he had the raw nerve to turn and leave, just walk out like with an attitude of confidence – I don't need you or anyone so go jump in the lake, old man. I'm Harry freaking Potter, and I don't have to –

"Sit down," Gringwad point to the chair next to him with the handle of his cane.

"I don't want to," Harry internally winced again at the petulance in his voice.

"You're going to sit down with or without a beating," Gringwad's tone stayed calm and even. "Your warden tried to refuse to bring you down. I bloodied his nose, and when he set two Dementors on me, I warded them off as well. Another tussle would not bother me."

Harry lifted his chin. "I'm the most powerful wizard in the world right now."

"You're stuck in a prison with your friends. You look terrible – bags under your eyes, white as a sheet, shaky hands."

"My cell doesn't have a mirror!" Harry felt a wave of hysteria rise up in him. He was certain Gringwad was Gringwad, but then that meant Snape wasn't here and something must have gone wrong and Snape didn't want him talking to Gringwad but who cared what Snape wanted because Harry didn't care and if he did, it was too late but –

Gringwad stood up, strode across the space between them, and grabbed Harry by the back of the neck.

"Get off me," Harry tried to duck away, but the man pulled him a few steps and shoved him into a chair.

Harry leaned forward to stand up, but Gringwad held the handle of his cane against Harry's throat.

"Sit still. I have no patience for childish behavior this morning."

"Because you're sooooo busy," Harry retorted, but he didn't say it too loudly with the hard handle jammed against his Adam's apple.

"I am busy."

"Doing what?"

"You see," Gringwad pulled back his cane and took his seat, "it's questions like that which make you seem young and silly. You remind me of a toddler – why this, why that? A wizard, an adult, a hero, a warrior, they don't ask questions. They discern, they listen and draw their own conclusions, they confront, they demand truths. When you're my apprentice, I will strip this annoying tendency from you. I may forbid any questions at all."

"I'm not your apprentice. Snape didn't sign the contract. And honestly," Harry drew up what little courage he had left, "in case you haven't noticed, I have bigger concerns than that stupid contract. I have friends to take care of and a plan to get out of here and to right the wrongs of wizarding world. You aren't even a concern at this point. I forgot all about you."

A slight smile twitched up Gringwad's lips. "It's this indominable spirit I enjoy so much. You present this unique blend of aggression and self-doubt. You so desperately need to be disciplined and molded, to have strict rules and harsh consequences. You're only happy when you're challenged and have obstacles to fight against, and a good mentor would recognize your need for severe monitoring as you can only excel when you are repressed."

"That's not true! I'm not like that at all. I'm repressed here and I hate it. It's not making me a better anything."

"Of course not here. You have no mentor here, no one to structure your time and activities. You can't tell me that worm Finberg cares two bits about what happens to you. He's a bottom feeder and uses sadistic methods to intimidate others. Yet, at the first sign of a threat, he retreats. He enjoys his petty authority, his own importance in his own eyes."

Finberg had caved, had withdrawn when Ginny challenged him, and had been almost hiding ever since his authority was questioned.

Harry shook his head, trying to rid himself of the impulse to agree with Gringwad. "I don't care what you say. Snape told me to stay away from you."

"The same Snape who left you to rot in here?"

"He hasn't! He's planning out a rescue. I have to be patient, but a hero needs to wait on others sometimes."

Gringwad smirked, and it was the most irritating thing in the world.

"Oh, you would have done it differently. You would have blown up the whole Wizarding world."

"No," Gringwad twirled the handle of the cane idly, "I would have taken you to the middle of the Ministry and I would have announced to everyone that you were the new leader of the Wizarding world. I would have demanded Scrimgeour resign. I would have had every journalist, ministry member, and foreign government leader I could find to witness my siege. Then I would gather a mob to demand a trial of all the Ministry's top officials. Every scrap of evidence I could find, every piece of paper, every magical object, every witness that saw anything in the last 16 years – I would parade them all through the trial. And I wouldn't make it short. It would drag on for months. And unlike Scrimgeour, I would allow everyone to talk. The longer you let people speak, the more they tend to trip themselves up if they are lying and the more the truth reveals itself. No secrets, just raw openness."

Damn it all, that sounded brilliant. Harry bit his tongue to keep from asking Gringwad to go on, to keep talking, to keep painting this beautiful picture of a world where truth and justice reigned. He wanted to go there, to live there, to relish that beauty of that place.

"Instead," Gringwad went on, "Snape decided to go to trial, have you look all pathetic and weak, and hope that Scrimgeour wouldn't come down too hard. I don't pretend to know the inner working of others' minds, but I judge a man or woman based on the outcomes. What did they achieve? What did they accomplish? How were they successful?"

"I don't have to defend Snape to you," Harry muttered.

"If you agree with the outcome, then ignore everything I've said. If you feel you deserve fifteen years in prison to atone for your sins, well, now, only you can answer to your conscience."

Harry said nothing, his throat tight and his ears buzzing with fury.

"Given the evidence at the trial, I do concur that you have been quite reckless and impulsive, but I would have recommended restitution. When a person is sent to prison, he fades from memory. People think, ah, yes, he's somewhere living out his punishment, but it's not satisfying. An execution excites the masses, especially a public one, but it's over too quickly. The kiss of a Dementor and then the letdown because there's nothing else to do once the prisoner's body has no soul."

He paused, but Harry refused to ask him to continue. He scowled at the floor, hating himself for liking the hypnotizing words and images that Gringwad produced effortlessly.

"No, not the slow punishment or the fast for me," Gringwad went on. "I would have put you on punishment tour."

"You would have beaten me in every city in Britain?"

"I would have put you on display, acting out your contrition. You broke out of Hogwarts – I would have taken you there and made you repair the window with the whole school watching. At the end, you make a speech to the school about why obedience matters. Then in Diagon Alley, where you burned the whole street, then crashed through windows weeks later – oh, you would have learned how to rebuild buildings in humble Muggle style. That young man you impersonated – you would hold a public conference with him to apologize and then donate lots of money to some charity that he would oversee. That inn and forest you destroyed – repaired to even better circumstances than before. On and on, each time, you on display, contrite and humbled and very, very sympathetic."

Harry clenched his fists against the seat of the chair. It all sounded so very wonderful.

"Eventually, public opinion changes. People see you remorseful and repentant, sweaty and tired from physical labor, having to give yet another apology under the stern eyes of a guardian or mentor. Then they start to think, poor lad, he's very young and so sorry and he is an orphan and never had a proper upbringing. Then after that, when anyone dares to mention that you destroyed some of the Wizarding world, the immediate reply is 'Yes, but he rebuilt it, too. If only all young men could be as noble and brave as our Harry Potter'."

Somewhere at the back of Harry's mind, he remembered the embarrassing dinner with Snape and Narcissa where the conversation with Gringwad in the wood had been revealed. He remembered Snape cautioned him against Gringwad, saying he was dangerous and bad, but . . . but . . .

Harry couldn't remember exactly why. All Gringwad's ideas were good, and Snape had no ideas so who cared?

The room fell silently.

Outside the window several Dementors floated by.

How wonderful it would have been to be the Harry Potter in Gringwad's story. That Harry Potter was a true hero and got to show his concern about other people. That Harry Potter wouldn't feel guilty or worried because he got to show his regret. That Harry Potter probably was smarter, and stronger, and had better answers than he did. That Harry Potter got to live out dreams while he, the other Harry Potter, had to sit in Azkaban like a loser.

"I need a timeturner," he said.

"You need to choose mentors better. And the last time you had a timeturner, you nearly got yourself and your friends killed."

"Why are you here? Do you just visit people in prison to make them feel bad about themselves?"

"No, I'm just checking on my investment."

"I am not your investment."

"This tends to by our repertoire. You ask a question, I give an answer, and you argue with the logic of what I've just said."

"It's not logical!"

"I consider you an investment. How is that not logical? And why are you so insulted? I think you are most important wizard alive right now. And that is problematic how?"

"You want to own me. We don't own people anymore."

"Nonsense, I offered an apprenticeship contract. Those are legal in both the Wizarding world and the Muggle world. And you signed it."

"I didn't sign my full name. And Snape signed nothing."

Another infuriating shrug. "In July, you'll be of age. Then you can do whatever you want."

"I'll still be in prison."

"We both know you won't stay in prison."

"Because Snape is going to get me out."

"No, because you are going to break yourself out."

Harry shot him a quick, side look, but the man's face was blank as always. "You can't break out of Azkaban. I mean, Sirius did, and then a bunch of Deatheaters, but normal people . . ." He trailed off at the hard look Gringwad gave him.

"Don't you dare refer to yourself as normal. There isn't a thing normal about you. You ever claim to be normal, and I'll cane you for a week."

"I'm not going to break out of Azkaban!"

"Did you promise Snape that?"

Had he? Did he promise Snape to stay in prison?

"I don't have to tell you anything," Harry snarled. "And if you've come to check on your investment, your investment says you should get out of his sight."

"So temperamental," Gringwad sighed. "I blame these Dementors, though you really are so much stronger than them. But never let it be said that I only look out for my own interests and can't think of others. I brought you something."

He pulled out a black box wrapped with a red ribbon.

"What is that?" Harry demanded.

"I'm sure your friends got presents from their family and I don't want you to return without some trinket to prove that your visitor cares about you. Children always want presents."

"Adults like presents." Harry wasn't sure why he felt the need to contradict Gringwad. The man was so patronizing and belittling that Harry just couldn't let him go unchallenged. But he stood to take the present because, well, he wanted a present.

"Here you go," Gringwad handed him the box.

A tug loosened the bow, and Harry opened the top. Inside, nestled between thin sheets of white tissue paper was a green object, smaller than his fist. It was round in the middle but sharpened to points at both ends. He picked it up, about to shake it.

"Put your hand around it."

Harry wrapped his hand around the smooth middle, half-thinking that he probably shouldn't do anything that Gringwad told him.

"Ah, you're doing it wrong," Gringwad rose and came over. He closed his hard, gnarled hands with so many scars over Harry's hand.

"What – ow!"

Needles popped out of the object, piercing his hand. But he was frozen, unable to move as he stared in Gringwad's face, the man's brown eyes glowing an uncanny yellow.

"Take it in. It's not poison – you're too powerful to hurt with mere poison. But this is a mood enhancer. Whatever you are feeling, it will amplify it, and you will feel so much better when you give into this feeling."

Harry tried to make a gurgling sound, but the pain had received from his hand and been replaced with bright euphoria. He was feeling overwhelmed with how lovely - bright and sparkling - he felt.

"I can't wait for you to show all your tricks. All right, that's enough for now."

Gringwad pried Harry's fingers off the green object. Tiny marks of blood appeared on the smooth surface of the object, but Gringwad wiped it clean with the tissue paper and slipped the object into his pocket. Out of another pocket he pulled out a small box of Bertie Bott's Beans and put it in the open gift box.

Harry still couldn't move. His own breath rasped in and out, and he wondered if he would fall over eventually as his legs couldn't move

Gringwad took his hurt hand and spread a cream over it. The tiny punctures healed immediately, and then Gringwad took him by the elbows and maneuvered him to sit back down. Thankfully, his knees still worked and he flopped down easily enough.

Gringwad put the box with the candy on his lap. "I'm leaving now. You'll feeling slightly amnesic for a few hours, but by tonight, the potion will take full effect."

Harry tried to move, but he still had no control over his body.

"Here's the kicker," Gringwad stepped back, one hand casually leaning on the cane. "I stole this potion concoction from Snapdragon Manor. For all his wards and protections, Snape has some of the laxest security measures. I put one of his house elves under the Imperious Curse, and he brought me whatever I wanted. Some of that research that Snape had hidden away," Gringwad leaned in, "it was fascinating. I couldn't believe what he had discovered about you. Of course, he probably doesn't realize what he discovered, but . . ." Gringwad paused. "And what he found out about your mother – absolutely mind-shattering."

Harry made a growling noise in his throat.

Gringwad smiled, and it was wolfish. "Sadly, you won't remember that I told you any of this. I could perform a quick _Obliviate_ , but –" Gringwad straightened and brushed at his cuffs – "I'm going to let you sit here and lose this memory slowly. Uncomfortable for you, but that's payback for your rudeness today, especially after I came all this way to visit."

Gringwad strode out, but Harry sat, staring down at the box of candy.

All right, all right, remember. Everything that had just happened, remember it. Gringwad infected him with that green thing, stole from Snape, and knew important information about him and his mother.

A few Dementors flew by. Harry wondered if someone would come fetch him, and what they would do when he couldn't move. But feeling was slowly returning and he could move his feet.

Oh, wait, remember. He had to remember. Gringwad had infected him somehow, gone to see Snape, and knew something really important.

The candy in the box were all bright colors, absent of the brownish, blackish, and whitish beans that were in most boxes. Gringwad must have gotten a special box. It didn't matter – Harry wasn't going to eat them.

Wait, why wasn't he going to eat them? Oh, remember, ugh, that Gringwad had come to see him and Snape and brought these beans.

That was nice of Gringwad. Why was everyone so hard on him?

Harry's right hand moved and he realized he could pick up the box. He opened the box and let the bright beans roll into the box.

One piece of tissue looked dirty, stained with dots of reddish-brown liquid. Harry pulled out the dirty tissue, crumpled it up, and tossed it aside.

He took several beans and raised them to his lips. He paused, squinting in concentration as he tried to remember.

Remember something. Gringwad had been somewhere?

No, wait, he hadn't seen Gringwad since that day in the woods. Ugh, such an embarrassing day.

A note was under the clean tissue. A white piece of paper with black ink – _To brighten up your prison stay, Luna Lovegood._

Harry smiled and tossed the beans into his mouth. They were good flavors – pineapple, raspberry, and mint.

He stood up and took the candy with him.

Back in the cell room, Harry settled on his bunk to eat the rest of his candy, humming a little as he chewed.

"Who visited you?" Ginny asked.

"Ugh, I guess Luna did."

"Luna visited you? I thought her father had her under house arrest."

"She brought me candy. Have some?" Harry offered the box to her.

She took four beans and ate them slowly. "You look different, Harry."

"I'm still me. It was nice to have a visitor though."

That night, he got in his bunk when the candles went out. He heard the others drift off to sleep, but he couldn't. He tossed and turned restlessly as feelings came over him.

He was angry at Snape – rage.

He wished Ron would stop snoring – he wanted to strangle Rom until the air left his lungs.

He wished he had more candy – tears filled his eyes and he hated how sad he was without any more beans.

He thought about the weird flavors of the beans – he started giggling and kept chuckling until his chest hurt.

He felt slightly unhinged, mad as a hatter.

Still giggling, he stood up and went out of his cell to stand under the window. The crooked stone by the window that he had fixed was where he left it, but suddenly all the stones looked crooked.

Obviously, the whole wall would have to go.

He would make the room bigger.

He sent a row of stones out the wall, letting them drop to the sea below. He could get them later.

With a nod of his head, he blew all the stones, hundreds of them, out of the wall and held them out into the dark night where the Dementors floated.


	4. Breakout

The Dementors froze as the stones spread out.

Harry let the stones fall, smiling as he watched them disappear into the darkness below, their splashes muffled by the roaring wind.

"Harry!" Ginny's voice was weak behind him. "Harry, stop!"

He thought he heard Ron and Draco yell as well, but Harry decided they could just watch.

Stepping to the hole in the wall, his bare feet feeling the cold of the broken stones scattered underneath, he faced the Dementors.

"You stupid, black-robed floaters," he growled. "I spent so long scared of you, like a little child whimpering -"

He released a Patronus so strong that light ripped through the night air, freezing Dementors in its glare. Two Dementors were torn in half, and they gave horrific screeches as their robes burned into ashes and were blown away.

"Oops," Harry smirked. "Guess I'm a little strong tonight."

The memory of the fall came back, sitting in Snape's Defense against the Dark Arts class and feeling tired of the taunts. Then he had performed so strong a spell that it temporarily blinded most of the class. The pleasure that had rose in him then – a brief flash of achievement and joy – was nothing to the delight and throbbing energy which spun through his whole body now.

He had never felt so alive.

Another Patronus split the darkness with painful light. But this time, the Dementors were in fast retreat. They flew through the night from the prison, hissing and screaming with rage.

"Sorry," Harry felt his lips snarl to the side in his best Snape smirk, "you were in my way."

Next, he concentrated on pulling the rocks from the walls behind him. The magic felt easy as did the action – like pulling small stones from a muddy bank, much like the work he had done in the gardens over the summer –

"No!" Harry bellowed. "No more memories!"

He waited for his own magic to attack him, the remove the traces of painful images and thoughts, the human feelings that continuously hurt him. He would forget everything that had happened to him, good and bad. He would begin fresh and new.

Harry paused a second, holding hundreds of stones in the air.

It didn't work. He still had all his memories. There were all there – his first year of school, saving Ginny from Tom Riddle, Snape adopting him, Luna over him in the darkness, meeting Gringwad, Snape returning . . . a thousand memories still there, still vivid, still alive.

He gave another roar and brought down the whole side of the prison, removing the walls of many floors that spanned down into the darkness below him.

With a quick arm movement, he maneuvered the stones into steps below him. They organized themselves like obedience magnets, fitting together into steps that disappeared down towards the sea. Dark matter floated down around him and twined itself into a black robe. His feet felt like they were ensconced in boots.

He meant to step out on the stairs and walk away, leave without a look back.

But he did look back.

Ginny was against the bars of her cells, crouching on the floor with her hands over her head to protect herself from falling debris. Ron and Draco occupied similar poses. They all looked terrified, and Harry caught the shine of tears on all their faces.

He wanted nothing more than to slap them. How glorious it would feel to order them to kneel before him, make them swear loyalty to him, demand they become his Deatheaters –

"Piss off, Voldemort!" The words came from his mouth before he realized he had said them. "I'm not you, and I'm not Snape or Gringwad. I'm Harry Potter."

He marched back into their prison room and tore the bars off Ginny's cells.

She tried to scramble back, but he levitated her out to the steps.

"Wait, mate!" Ron gasped, but Harry flung his barred door open.

"Take care of her. Help Hermione," he told Ron.

He sent Ron out to the steps before approaching Draco.

Unlike Ron and Ginny, Draco stayed frozen in fear as his bars splintered. His one eye stayed fixed on Harry. "Your – your face," Draco choked. "You have his face."

Draco should have learned to keep his opinion to himself. Harry considered flinging him outside, maybe making Draco hang off the steps for a second and dangle there to let him scream. But – Harry sighed – he had promised Narcissa.

"Shut up and take your eye back!"

With an outstretched arm, he pulled Draco to him, ignoring his struggles, and thrust his open hand over Draco's eyepatch. Light and heat exploded from his hand, and Draco screamed as he clawed at Harry's wrist.

When Harry pulled the eyepatch back, Draco's new eye blinked back at him. It looked almost the same as his other eye. The color was the same, about the same size, more of diamond-shaped pupil and a weird twitching movement.

"Good enough for you," Harry tossed him out to the steps.

As he walked out the prison himself, he saw Ron grab Ginny's hand and motion to Draco. "Come on, run. He's – he's gone mad."

So rude, but Harry didn't have time to protest. He started down the stairs, pulling stones with him as soon he stepped off them. Loose stones were send down to keep the stairs going down.

"We're so high," Ginny cried as she stumbled forward with her brother.

"Just keep moving," Ron ordered. "Keep going, and do not look back."

Draco was right behind them, but he did look back occasionally.

Harry thought about yelling at him to watch where he was going, but they didn't have much time. The Dementors were edging back; some had returned to the prison to buzz around the broken side where prisoners were peering out, shrieking for help, or avoiding falling stones from higher floors.

Harry thought he saw Finberg on one floor, but he wasn't sure. As much as he wanted to flip the sadist out to fall down into the water, he didn't have time to go back and wreak revenge.

The closer they got down to the water, the softer the wind got, but Harry stopped the stairs about ten feet above the sea.

Ginny looked back at him finally. "We-we're miles from land. Do you want to-to make a stone walk to there?"

Harry stopped, about seven steps above them. "A boat is fine."

The boat they had come over on would have returned to the land and that was too far away. He pictured the dock at the prison. He remembered the wood between the rocks. It would work.

It took a few seconds, but then pieces of wood were flying towards him over the water. He pictured a barge, square and flat, and the wood obliged by arranging its pieces into a barge about ten by ten feet.

"There you go," he levitated them, one at time, onto the barge.

He lowered himself on the barge just in time to hear Draco say,

"How is he so powerful? It's the Dark Lord all over-"

"No," Ginny interrupted, "Hermione was right. It's all the sacrifices. She and Snape said -"

"Shh," Ron hushed her, his eyes wary on Harry.

So they wanted to talk about him did they?

"I think I'll take my own ride," Harry said coldly. He motioned two stones down from the hanging steps and moved them a good space from the barge below floating down to them. He let the stones all fall, enjoying the tremendous crash they made as they tumbled down. Then he sent the barge and the two stones he stood on forward, purposefully moving them a little too fast so the others had to crouch down to keep from falling off.

The ride back to land was much faster than the ride over had been. And as for the mood, well, Harry felt fantastic. Maybe his friends were not as enthusiastic, but he could ignore that. They were getting away from Azkaban.

The docks came in sight, but Harry didn't slow their speed, even when he saw the crowd waiting there. Of course, Azkaban had send news of the prison break to the mainland, and they had probably contacted the ministry. The Wizarding world could pull itself together quickly when it wanted to track him down, but it took years for them to admit that Voldemort might be back. Just lovely.

He only slowed the barge when it was feet from the docks, and Ron, Draco, and Ginny toppled over when the barge hit the main dock.

Most of the Ministry was there, wands out, terrified faces.

Harry stayed over the water to face them. "Here," he motioned to his friends, "I brought these as collateral, but now that I'm here I realize I don't need them."

He made the three stumble off the barge, glad to see they were shaking. Rather than attack them, several members drew Ron, Draco, and Ginny into their protective fold. An older female even soothed Ginny to get her to stop trembling.

"What do you want?" Scrimgeour demanded.

"From you, nothing. From all of you, nothing. I want to be left alone. In every sense of the word, in every possible way, I want to be left alone."

The crowd rippled with tension, but Harry went on.

"I wanted to go back to Hogwarts, you said no. I wanted to stay at the manor, you sent me to prison. It's funny how weak and pathetic you are, prime minister. I could split your skull open before you could get a tiny little spark out of your wand."

Another ripple. A stunning curse shot at him from the crowd, but he lifted a hand. The curse dropped and fizzled out with a gurgle into the water.

"Sad," Harry remarked. "You know, it amazes me that when you get to the bottom of it, wizards are so remarkably frail and helpless. All this power, and you restrict it, tie it up, forbid it. No wonder Voldemort played you as a fool."

"Harry!" the crowd parted, and Snape stepped out. "Harry, wait."

Ignoring the pain that swelled in his throat, Harry kept his voice dull and sarcastic. "Ah, look, the man with no plan. I bring him back and he cowers like the rest of them. Stop gasping, people. He wasn't dead, just scattered. Voldemort broke him in pieces. Or I did. One of us and he crumbled like a biscuit."

The sound of his own voice felt so good, and this brave, fearless Harry was a lot of fun to play. Harry with nothing to lose certainly had a good deal to say.

"I know a lot of you," Harry glanced over the crowd. "I've seen you here and there, in the Ministry, at Diagon Alley, some of you have children at Hogwarts. You knew who I was, the Boy who Lived. Did you know about my life the first eleven years? Did you know how hard the last few years at Hogwarts were? Did you know how I prepared myself to fight Voldemort? He's dead because I stepped up. Me, with my friends," Harry purposefully avoided Snape's gaze. "We did it. The rest of you could sit in your little houses with your pathetic, simple lives and just trust that someone would step up."

A movement came from the far right of crowd. Suspecting it might be an ambush, Harry lifted his arm and blew the barge out of the water with a blast that tore the wood apart.

The movement stilled, but Harry felt only contempt. "You all showed up here to stop me again. Did you have a plan? Did you? Let's just put out this one fire and pretend that we're in control? I can't even think how small your thinking process must be. How do you find your way to breakfast each morning?"

"Harry, listen," Snape broke in.

The temptation to obey was strong. A tiny ray of hope still existed in him that Snape might have a plan. Maybe somehow Snape had figured something out, something that he had decided not to tell Harry for a very, very good reason.

Unbidden, the image of Snape's lab rose in Harry's mind – all the books, pictures, graphs, and scribblings on him. Snape had tried to explain it away, but it stung terribly still. Snape had made so many decisions without informing him because who cared about Harry Potter's opinion? Harry Potter, apparently, existed to be a puppet, a yes-man to follow orders without comment and trust blindly that others knew better than he did.

"I'm leaving," Harry announced.

He put his hand out and dragged Scrimgeour through the air.

A din of protest rang out, but Harry kept Scrimgeour level with him, holding him two feet away. Scrimgeour tried to aim his wand, but Harry forced his arm out so the wand pointed to the side.

"I'm leaving for good," Harry kept his voice calm. "I want my friends to say out of Azkaban. If I hear anything about them going back to prison, I will come back to destroy the whole Ministry of Magic, down to its last brick. And then," Harry pulled the prime minister a little close, "I will drive your wand through your heart until I feel it burst."

He waited until fear dawned in the man's eyes. Then Harry released the magic holding Scrimgeour up.

He watched the prime minister drop into the water.

Then Harry Apparated.

It hurt, a hard, jerking motion that made him stumble to ground when he appeared in whole. He got and glanced around. He was in a dark field with the grass brown and the trees bare. A few sheep lifted their heads to look at him and then trotted away. Nowhere was there a shore or even the sight of water.

"Take me as far as I can go," he closed his eyes and willed himself forward.

His next sudden appearance didn't jar him as hard though he did have to step forward quickly to catch his balance. He was down a county lane with lots of mud and broken pavement.

But which way was south? He jogged down the dark road until he found a crossroad. A nearby sign said _Glasgow_ with an arrow to the right and _Edinburgh_ with an arrow to the left. If he remembered right Glasgow was to the west of Edinburgh, meaning he should go straight between to go south.

Bracing himself, Harry forced himself to keep Apparating. The pain lessened as he got a better grasp on the mechanics of the jump. Without a map, he had no idea how far he went each time, but it had to be more than several miles because he recognized nothing from his previous position, not even the cloud formations against the moon.

He went through a city, almost getting hit by a car before vanishing again. He appeared over water, but before he could drop, he Apparated himself forward. More water, so he kept going. Two more Apparates, and then he landed on a rocky beach. He glanced back quickly, guessing he had gone over the Channel.

So he was France now, right?

He saw a sign: _Les Arbres_. Yes, definitely France.

How far south did he want to go? Out of Europe altogether? But that meant crossing the Mediterranean Sea, and unlike the Channel, it wasn't a short distance. It stretched hundreds of miles in some places.

He tried to remember the geography classes before Hogwarts. The shortest way to get across the Mediterranean was the Strait of Gibraltar which only had about eight or nine miles from, uh, Spain to maybe Morocco? That sounded right, but that meant moving southwest into Spain.

He spent the next few hours in constant movement. He stopped to steal a map and some food from one town, willing the objects to come to him without a busy vendor noticing.

The sun finally rose, and Harry had to be careful not to be spotted. He avoided big cities, often walking around small towns until he caught the name of where he was before angling his next Apparates to keep away from any large names on the map.

The French countryside gave way into the Spanish farms. The air grew warmer and the plants weren't as brown. Greenery colored the world and most houses he saw were white with tile roofing.

Crossing the Strait proved difficult because of all the boats moving in and out from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea. Anyone catching of a young man appearing over the water and disappearing again would be sure to talk.

Harry finally figured the easiest way would be to buy a ticket for the voyage across. A stolen wallet, a pinched set of clothes, a quick wait at a line that boasted of speaking Spanish, English, French, and German, and he had a ticket.

He walked out to the dock with other milling tourists. The sun soaked the pale wood with a warmth that he had not felt in ages. His short-sleeve shirt let the sun shine on his pale arms, and he was glad he had nabbed a hat and sunglasses that masked his face and provided some shade from the sun.

He was alert as he boarded the ship, but so far nothing had happened. No one approached him, no burst of magic surprised, no sudden movement caught his attention. Just average tourists of all walks of life, all ethnicities and languages, but all Muggles as far as he could surmise.

He meant to sleep on the boat, but it was so short a trip that he only got about 20 minutes before the ship was docking.

"All right," a plump American woman dug into her purse, "time to get out our passports now that we're in Africa."

Her two children kept staring out the window at all the boats, but Harry stealthily got up and crept away. He had no identification, let alone a Muggle passport. He had been so busy worrying about a magical attack that he had forgotten that Muggles had to deal with the burden of correct paperwork.

Head down, he waited until almost everyone had exited before Apparating to the other side, landing in a shipping yard beside a giant metal cargo.

Morocco was beautiful, alive with color and tourism, but Harry had no time to appreciate its splendors as he made his way farther south.

Only when he stopped for a bottle of water to parch his intense thirst did he permitted himself to look around. It occurred to him as he gazed up at pictures and advertisements in foreign languages that he hadn't really been anywhere. When going to Hogwarts and Diagon Alley and the Weasleys' and Snapdragon Manor, he thought himself wide-traveled and adventuresome. Yet, here on another continent, he realized how little he had seen of the world.

Draco had traveled around the globe. Hermione talked about her parents and their family jaunts to France and Italy for long holidays. Even Ron had been to Egypt.

How could he, the Boy who Lived, the savior of the Wizarding world, the one who had defeated Voldemort, how could his life be lived in such confined, limited spaces? And craziest of all, he had been happy only a week ago to stay under house arrest at the manor. That silly afternoon in the woods, edging to the limits of the wards to call Gringwad, scared he might step wrong and be outside of the invisible boundaries.

And then he had obediently gone off to prison to live in a tiny cell.

Meanwhile, a whole world lay unseen and undiscovered beyond the cold world of England and Scotland. Even now as he stood on the continent of Africa, he hadn't stood on the other five continents. What might America look like? How cold was Antarctica? What did food taste like in Brazil? What did an open-air, spice market smell like in India?

Harry spent the next five days making his way down the coast, passing through Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea. In the coastal towns, he blended in with other tourists, taking wallets from wealthy people to pay for food and a night at a hostel.

The closer he got to the equator, the hotter the air got. Never before had he sweated so much, pouring bottles of water down his throat in desperation. It was almost as if he was trying to sweat his old life out.

The Apparating wore him and he went to bed early in the raggy bunks of the hostels, listening to the guy in the next bunk, a Liberian native, laugh that the sun was too much "for the vite Engleesh boy."

It was off the coast of Ghana that something made him stop in his incessant journey south. The villages were filled with wooden boats and old temples and castles lay inward, marking places of the slave trade from centuries before.

He remembered learning about slavery in Muggle school, but the teacher had brushed over it as a problem solved long ago. It had not been real then.

No it felt real, especially when Harry found himself standing outside of Elmina Castle, the first trading post built below the Sahara. They were the first to build a dungeon to hold people before they were sold into slavery.

No matter where he went, there were markings of the cruelty that people did to each other. For years, centuries, millennia, maybe since the beginning of humankind, there had been suffering.

He couldn't go inside the castle.

However, he did make his way to a nearby fishing village. There children ran around. There mothers watched from doorways while fixing dinner. Men worked repairing boats and fishing. Young women flirted with young men. An old man sang a song from a porch stoop.

Harry sat on a pier and dangled his feet into the water even though it stunk of fish.

A little girl, probably around five, ran up to him, ignoring the calling of her mother. She had tight curls of her dark hair and deep dimples.

Harry smiled at her and held out his hand.

She hesitated but then placed her hand on his, her dark skin contrasting against his somewhat sun-burnt white skin.

Then she giggled and ran back to her mother.

Harry turned back to stare at the water, the ocean stretching before him.

He knew no one here. He didn't speak the dialects. He had no money, no possessions.

He could hide here for a while.


	5. Sand and Heat

7 Months Later

Harry leaned back against the side of his boat, angling his face away from the sun.

Unlike England and Scotland, where sun rarely shone beyond the clouds, the coast of Ghana seemed to situate itself for the sun to blaze down on all living creatures to the point that Harry would swear the sun was getting closer to earth everyday.

His loose clothing and bandana over his head were already soaked with sweat.

He reached for the bottle of water and downed half of it. He would need to make more potion to relieve the sunburn he got daily.

The first month he had applied sunscreen diligently, but despite high SPFs and claims of being sweatproof, he was painfully burned by the end of the day. Hiding in the shade, staying out of water, and slapping on more greasy sunscreen did nothing to ease his burning. Finally, he had relented and made a potion to ease skin burning, a potion that he remember from his third-year potions textbook.

The potion stunk up his little hut, a thatched-roof, one room affair with a hammock to sleep and a faucet that let water spew out to fall into a drain below. Someone had been kind enough to build an outhouse thirty feet away that reeked so bad in the heat of day that Harry avoided going near it unless absolutely necessary.

The hut only had walls on two sides which Harry had found odd when he first saw it. But the landlord, who owned a dozen similar huts down the beach, had explained to him in broken English that the wind needed to blow in and out or he would suffocate from the heat. During the first night, Harry had realized the landlord was indeed telling the truth as he lay sweating and begging that another breeze might waft in from the ocean.

But he had endured the heat, learned to swallow it down, drink more water, and hide his face from the relentless glare.

A tug from one of the lines made Harry sit up in the boat and reach for the taut twinge that disappeared into the water. He had to pull it slow, he had learned, to keep the fish on the line. The bait on the hook was magically enhanced so fish would be lured to it, but for actually pulling it in, he depended on his own strength and speed.

The fish was big and long, at least 20 pounds and 2 feet long. He unhooked the hook and tossed the fish down beside the other seven he had already caught. That was enough for today.

He wound up the line, aimed the boat towards shore, and began paddling. Earlier in the year he had used magic to force the boat to go faster, but now he used his own arms and back to get to shore.

It was past noon when he docked. Putting the biggest fish aside, he strung the others on a line, slung them over his back, and trudged up the docks towards the trading store.

Several other fishermen saw him, and a few began laughing.

" _Siadefo_!" they called out.

Harry grinned at them and nodded. That name apparently was Fante for _lucky person_. He had learned a few words so far, but Ghana had so many dialects and slang words mixed in with English that he didn't try much. Almost everyone he met knew some English, a result he feared was due to British Imperialism and the American slave trade of past centuries.

The trading store was the main hub of the village where about fifty families lived. Another building had a walk-up bar where he liked to eat in the evenings as it doubled as a diner. The food was different – millet, sorghum, plantain, and always and forever fish – but he ate without complaint.

The thing he missed the most was tea. He might have been able to find a good cup of strong, hot tea in port cities like Tema, but here in the rural coast lands, he had to settle for whatever goods they had.

In the trade store, he put his fish on the counter as the owner, a Mr. Ekow, walked over. Harry wasn't sure if Ekow was a first or last name, so he added a Mr. to it in his mind and called the man Sir which he seemed to like immensely.

"Here you go, Sir."

"So many fish. All the time. Never stop," Mr. Ekow shook his head in wonder.

"Guess the fish just like me," Harry shrugged.

"Too lucky, too lucky," the owner moved to weigh the fish. Still muttering and shaking his head, Mr. Ekow reached into the till and gave Harry 4 cedis coins and 45 pesewas.

From what he had learned about their currency, it took about 7 cedis to make 1 British pound sterling and about 5 to make the American dollar. He wasn't sure about the exchange rate into Wizard money, but he doubted it would be good. He had no idea how the other fishermen lived on such pay and hoped desperately that he was paid these scraps because he was the only white British stranger in the village.

There was an American guy doing research for a doctoral dissertation in one of the huts down the beach, but when Harry had approached him, the guy had sworn and closed his laptop. "Who the hell are you? I came all the way out here to do work on tribal, primitive living in poverty-stricken Africa and you are going to ruin my observation by bringing in your privilege and Western civilization!"

Harry had tried to protest that the village wasn't exactly primitive as they had a phone line in the trade store and generators if they needed electricity (one of which the American was using), but the American had been irate and started yelling about post-colonialism and the evils of global capitalism that made Africa so poor and how dare he come here and expect the citizens of Ghana to bow to him like all the British explorers of the 1800's. Harry had considered setting his laptop on fire, but instead had slunk away. He didn't visit that side of the beach much, and when he had heard that the American had suffered from heatstroke, he had allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk.

With coins in his pocket, he went back outside and got in his boat. Mornings were for fishing, afternoons for cleaning the boat and swimming.

He paddled along the shore until he saw his hut. Unlike other villagers who kept their boats at the main dock, Harry preferred to pull his up on the beach in front of his hut. No one seemed to mind, especially since the nearest hut was several hundred feet away.

The boat, one made in darkness from driftwood and pulled together with magic, was only about eight feet long. He had named it _The Ginny_ as the front had reddish wood that shone in the sunlight. It was his only connection from back home; he didn't even go by Harry here. He gave his name as Henry, figuring that was close enough to his own to remember to answer to it.

Lunch consisted of beheading whatever he had caught, cleaning it, and cooking it over a fire made on the beach. He would boil a pot of whatever grain he could buy for cheap, sprinkled salt over everything, and eat it.

Even now towards the end of July, he tried not think about the food of Hogwarts or Snapdragon Manor. Spitting out a fish bone, he would think about anything other than hot crusted bread with butter smeared over it, cold glasses of pumpkin juice, cuts of beef pink in the center with gravy – no, don't think about food. He was in exile and whatever the poor villagers ate, he would too. He wasn't going to create food, either; he would learn to like Ghana food.

By the time he cleaned up lunch, burning the remains of the fish, he went for a long swim in the ocean. Staying parallel to the shore, he swam past the other huts, past all human markings, until the wild shore spread out.

There he liked to climb out of the water and hunt along the beach for shells or even a crab. He also would find material from nets, old masts and clothing, and bits of rope. He liked to tie all into a bundle, secure it to one leg with a rope, and swim back home with his treasures.

Late afternoon was spent tidying the hut, putting away his new treasures, washing clothes and dishes, and sweeping out the sand and dirt that was blown into his hut.

When his watch read 6:30, Harry either went to the village to eat or ate leftovers from lunch. Usually, a meal from the open bar cost about 2 cedis unless he wanted a drink with it which ran about 3. He could afford it; the only other thing he paid for was the hut at 30 cedis a month and the large bottles of purified water he consumed daily. If he ran out of money, he Apparated to a bigger city, stole money from people at a fancy hotel, and took money back to pay his rent. (He would sometimes treat himself to dinner in the city, but it had to be Ghana style food, nothing else.)

Once back at the hut, Harry set about the arduous task of cleaning himself. He had a large cloth that he hung over the front of the hut to give himself the illusion of privacy (even though the back was wide open.) With cool water from the faucet, he scrubbed all the sand, dried saltwater, and fish remains from himself. He had a bar soap and he rubbed through his hair as well. Then he spread the sunburn potion over all red places before putting on a loose shirt and shorts to sleep it.

He took the cloth down and folded it. It wasn't a Legilimency night so he didn't need it.

Sitting on the front of his hut, he watched the ocean turn different colors as the sun set. His wet hair had already dried, and it fell over his forehead until he tied it back with a bandana. He hadn't cut his hair since getting here and the tangled mop made him look older than 16, especially with the patchy scuff on his face.

Several people walked by in the twilight; Harry raised a hand to them and they waved back.

Everyone he had met was friendly, but wary of him. They had asked where he came for, and he had spun a yarn about wanting to see the world before settling down. He mentioned finishing school, so he guessed they thought he might be eighteen or nineteen. The muscles he had packed on in the fall had only grown, and with a recent growth spurt, he looked older than sixteen.

After a month of living there, the villagers acknowledged him more, much to the rage of the American who glared at Harry every time he saw him. The language barrier made long conversations with the villagers hard, so Harry smiled, waved, and nodded, and they seemed happy with that level of interaction.

He thought about learning more of their language, but if he talked more to them, he was in danger of spilling secrets. So far, no one had come to look for him, no one figured out his real name, no one guessed he was a wizard. He knew other wizards must live Ghana, but they were as apt at hiding it as the wizards in England had been.

Once it was dark, Harry went back inside. He lit a small lantern to brush his teeth and get into the hammock. It was past ten, and he had been physically active most of the day so he knew sleep would come quick. He listened to waves on the beach as weariness pushed down on him. Another beautiful day, another day of freedom, a day here he could go as he please. He would relish the feeling of peaceful content as sleep swept him away.

He woke up in the darkness.

Immediately, he reached for his watch, desperate for it to be early morning, right before sunrise.

2:11.

The wave of loneliness that swept over him was unbearable. He put his hand over his mouth to muffle a sob and then bit down on it as tears flooded his eyes.

Turning on his side in the swaying hammock, he drew himself into a ball and let the sobs rack his body.

The truth he avoided in the daylight was always stark clear in the darkness of night.

He hated being here.

No one cared if he lived or died in this place. If he drowned on one of his swims, they would shrug and clean out his hut. No one asked if he had eaten, or how he was feeling, did he have clean clothes, did he get enough sleep? No one asked if he had exercised or laid on the beach all day. No one scolded him, talked to him, listened to him, punished him, or even really looked at him.

The villagers all belonged here. They had family and friends, stories of past years, common language and customs, feeling of safety and security. Harry was really just a tourist in their lives, something to chat about over cups of pitoo or iced kenkey, but not really a part of the village.

At least the awful American had a place to go home to when his research was done!

Harry tried to wipe away tears to look at the watch again. 2:13.

In the business of the day, he could lie to himself. There were activities and work and exercise and getting food and all kinds of meaningless nonsense to distract himself from how miserable he was.

Harry got out of the hammock and went to the beach where the moon shone down. It was still except for the waves coming in and out.

He missed his friends. He missed Snape. He missed the manor. He missed Hogwarts. He missed everything about his own life. Yes, Azkaban had been a nightmare, but at least he had someone to talk to.

This was worse than the years with Dursleys. Then he had liked school and he had had the hope that life would get better the older he got. Now, he had no hope. He could go wherever he liked and see the whole blasted world, but he would be alone.

He barely practiced magic these days, he couldn't remember what felt like to hold a wand, and he was so, so tired of pretending like everything was great as he stuck another bite of horrid, oily fish into his mouth.

Never had he wanted to go home more.

Brushing way more tears, he imagined living a cupboard under the stairs at Snapdragon Manor. He would do it, just to be woken in the morning by an impatient Snape. "Enough sleep for you! More chores for punishment!"

That way waking up seemed a hundred times better than here, alone in the darkness.

Some nights he slept all the way through, and though it was awful waking alone, at least there was light and something to do. In the middle of the night, he had nothing. He didn't even have a book to read or paper to doodle on. He could have bought or stolen a book, but the characters in there would have conversations and friends, and Harry would still be all alone but jealous of fictional characters.

He had tried to make one of the wild birds his pet, but it pecked at him angrily and flew away. He even spoke Parceltongue to a snake he had found in the wild; it asked him to please let it be left alone because it didn't want to go to the village and be killed. Harry had asked the snake if they could hang out in the wild, away from the village; the snake replied that it wasn't fond of humans. It had slunk away, and Harry hadn't seen any snakes since.

2:17.

His tears finally dried up and he was left alone with the awful ache in his chest. At least tomorrow night was a Legilimency night. He slept better after those.

Why, oh, why, hadn't he made a deal with the Ministry after escaping Azkaban? Yes, he wanted to be left alone, but surely, they could have included a provision that let him return every three months for a weekend holiday. He could suffer the loneliness of three months if he knew he could be around people who cared for him eventually.

Unbidden, a memory came to him: the common room in Gryffindor Tower, warm with a fire blazing on the hearth as rain feel outside against the windows. Ron arguing with Hermione over something. Dean and Seamus playing chess. Prefects telling the first-years to go to bed and the third years better have all taken showers after Hagrid had them mucking out stalls for one of his new creatures. And Harry sprawled on the sofa, exhausted from training with Snape, content to sip a cup of what Snape called healing tea, but was something strong and bitter.

The memory was almost too painful to take in. Then his biggest worry was trying to avoid Moretta and hoping Snape didn't make the next training too hard.

He would give anything to switch places with that happy, content Harry.

Around three he went back to his hammock and stared at his watch until he fell asleep.

He didn't have nightmares anymore. Being awake was enough of a nightmare itself.

HP&HP&HP

The next day was pretty much the same except he stopped after catching six fish and got paid only 4 cedis.

He took time to scrub down the boat more thoroughly as it had a lot sand at the bottom. Swimming, dinner, washing up, until finally, finally it was 9:50.

He had the cloth hung up, and he sat down in the only chair with his back to the cloth. Waiting these last few minutes was the hardest part as his heartrate increased and his cheeks grew warm. He couldn't tell if it were nervousness, loneliness, eagerness, maybe desperation, but those ten minutes caused him to crush his hands into fists and bear out the ticking of the watch with short breaths.

At three seconds to ten, he closed his eyes. Just breathe.

When he opened them, he sat in the same place with the cloth behind him, but the hut had disappeared into darkness and the only things left were the cloth, the chair, and him. Oh, and Snape.

The man closed his eyes in frustration. "For the thousandth time, why do you have to involve the cloth. We're meeting in the middle, a dark place where we can't see anything else. I don't bring anything. Why do I have to look at that dirty rag every time?"

"You might look beyond it," Harry said weakly.

Snape crossed his arms. "For all that's holy – if I knew where you were, don't you think I would have found you already?"

"You might know."

"It's hot where you are," Snape listed off. "It's sandy. You're sunburned even though you keep trying to heal it. You and that cloth reek of fish. That narrows it to about a fifth of the world, which I may remind you, is quite large."

"Then stop trying to guess."

Snape looked murderous but stayed quiet.

"Are my friends safe?"

"You ask that question every time. I don't have to answer."

"Are my friends safe?"

"Yes."

"Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Draco?"

"Yes, all safe. None of them are in Azkaban."

"You could be lying."

"Then be my guest and come see for yourself. I promise you I will escort you to Azkaban myself once you arrive."

Harry said nothing.

"You look terrible," Snape's tone was short. "I'd been embarrassed if anyone knew you ever lived at Snapdragon Manor."

Snape looked fine, Harry realized with a pang. It was summer again so he wore black trousers and a white-collared shirt, but somehow it look better on him than last year. His dark hair was pulled back in in a single tail, and his face was vigorous and healthy.

Harry awkwardly smoothed down his raggedy sleeping shirt. "I-I don't need nice things anymore."

"There's only one thing you need."

From the dark direness of his tone, Harry doubted if that thing was a hug.

Silence lapsed between them as it always did after a few minutes. Harry couldn't tell Snape anything about his life now, and Snape refused to exchange a single word about anything he was doing or had seen or had planned. Their lives were almost as dark to each other as the blackness that enclosed their Legilimency space.

"I saw some interesting fish today," Harry ventured.

"I could not care less."

He scowled and crossed his arms to mimic Snape. "Then I don't know why you're here."

"You know exactly."

And Harry did. For the first week in Ghana, Snape had constantly tried to enter his mind. When Harry had shut himself off, Snape had tried to pull him into his own mind. Harry had let him until he had recognized the family room of the manor coming into view. He had informed Snape that he would only meet him in a neutral space, hence the black space. The hanging cloth was just an extra precaution against any snooping Snape might do.

Snape had yelled a lot in those days, threatened Harry within an inch of his life, but by March they had reached an agreement of only talking once every three days, always at ten o'clock at night Harry's time. (He thought Snape might be in the same time zone but didn't mention it.)

"I'm not coming back. You betrayed me. You said you would have a plan, but you left me alone in prison."

"I had a plan," the words were spoken flat but with conviction.

"What was it?"

"Why should I tell you? You made a mess and other people cleaned it up."

"I needed space. I felt trapped there."

"Now you have all the space you need," Snape shrugged.

Harry meant to reply something biting back, but his throat caught, and he had to swallow quickly to keep from making a noise.

"Harry," Snape stepped forward suddenly, "just come home. I promise I won't be too angry. Just come back, and we'll figure out everything."

"I-I can't."

Snape reached out, and Harry pulled out of the dark space, drawing himself back to his hut with a start.

He let himself have one gasp of frustration, hurt, regret and everything else that he felt in pulling away. For the thousandth time, he weighed the option of returning home. The sensible part of his brain (the part he ruefully thought was the adult side) laid it out neatly: he was not happy here. Go back to the manor and admit that running off was a mistake and destroying part of Azkaban was also a mistake and lots of mistakes happened and people needed to understand that.

But the other part of his brain protested (maybe not the adult side, but definitely not in any way a childish side since he was no longer a child). He didn't need anyone. Look how well he did here on his own, taking care of himself. Yes, there was the waking up at night sometimes in tears, but what could one expect with eating so much fish? Everyone knew fish made you a little unbalanced; Harry was certain he had heard that somewhere.

And Snape had to be punished. Harry was miserable, but then Snape must be, too. It would be nice if he could be happy while Snape was unhappy, but life was never fair.

Harry got off the chair. For some reason, he felt restless.

Rather than sleep, he went for a walk on the beach, letting the water lap on his bare feet.

The moon was beautiful over the ocean, and he wondered if he should give up sleeping at night altogether.

When he returned to the hut, he checked his watch. 11:59.

He felt so strange. Was something about to happen?

He remembered seeing the calendar several days ago, but that had been the 27 of July. Was – was it almost July 31?

12:00.

He was seventeen, he realized. He was of age now.

Harry leaned against one post of the hut. It was his birthday, and how different it had felt from last year when –

The cloth was torn down with a savage movement.

Gringwad stepped in the hut, holding a cane in one hand and a parchment in the other.

Harry felt his jaw drop open, but he couldn't move.

Gringwad smiled, a ferocious showing of teeth and malice. "Hello, hello."

Harry couldn't utter a word as the man in his dark suit looked completely out of place in the shabby conditions of his hut. Surely this was a nightmare.

"Let me be the first," Gringwad swung his cane in the chair, and the chair spun through the air and crashed against another post, "to wish you a very, very happy birthday."


	6. Onboard

Harry backed up, reaching for anything that might support him. He made an incoherent noise as he scrambled for words.

"Don't even think of using magic against me," Gringwad's eyes narrowed. "I have a charm on this hut to mask all sound, but I will blow thing sky high before you get out a _Expelliarmus_."

"I'm not going to use magic," Harry stammered. "But – but how did you find me?"

"I never lost you." Gringwad reached into his coat pocket and removed a small green object with sharp points at opposite ends. "Recognize this?"

Harry squinted at it. "No. Should I?"

"It took your blood. I've used it to track you since I visited you in Azkaban."

Harry blinked twice and shook his head. "No, no, I – er, no. I did not see you in Azkaban."

"I erased your memory then," Gringwad tucked the object away. "But I had your blood, and I have been keeping watch over you for the last few months."

"Few months? I've been here seven months. Have you been here watching me?"

"No, I've been off conducting other business. I checked by once or twice using the Imperius curse on that idiot American, but you weren't leaving so I went to track down a diamond poacher."

Harry opened his mouth, but nothing came out. As always, Gringwad relayed far too much information in a few simple sentences than any reasonable person could handle. Other business, the Imperius curse, the American, and what in the heck was a diamond poacher?

"Charming setting," Gringwad prodded the hammock with the tip of his cane. "The world's most powerful wizard living in poverty and stinking of fish. A far cry from the manor, but I suppose you missed that cupboard you slept in as a child."

Harry put his hand on one of the beam to steady himself. "Does Snape know where I am?"

"Probably not," Gringwad went to the table and poked around the food pots and plates with his cane. "I didn't tell him. If he wanted to know where you were, he should have put his own marker on you. He has offered a reward for you though."

"Oh."

The hut fell silent, and the sound of the ocean filled the night air.

Making a face, Gringwad turned away from the food and looked Harry. "Well, nothing here the least bit impressive. A dirty orphan in a dirty hut, grubbing around in a third-world country."

For some reason, that last bit enraged Harry, especially after he spent time each evening scrubbing his skin raw to get rid of the day's muck. "What do you want, old man? Take it and get out of my place."

The sarcastic smile disappeared from Gringwad's face. "Mind yourself, boy. I'm lenient now because it's your birthday, and I surprised you, but after this, I will cane you within an inch of your life if you speak to me like that again."

His tone made chills run up Harry's spine, but he masked his feelings as he said, "I am not interested in going back to the Wizarding world. If you are here to blackmail me by threatening to tell the Ministry where I am, I can get you some money. It's Muggle money, but if you give me a few days, I can go into the cities and get enough -"

"Shut up," Gringwad reached into his coat again and withdrew a parchment. "I'm here to collect on our agreement."

There on the creamy sheet in black ink read the words _I, Harry Potter, surrender myself to Gringwad's apprenticeship._ _Below was printed his name and Snape's._

 _And where he had signed_ _Harry_ _so long ago in Snapdragon Manor._

"I didn't sign this," Harry blurted out.

"This isn't your signature?"

"I didn't finish signing it."

"But you started it. And it will recognize your magic."

"But Snape didn't sign it."

"No, he didn't," Gringwad pretended to look crestfallen before he smirked and added, "That's why I waited until you were of age."

Harry felt the blood draining out of his face, and it hurt to swallow. "I-I-I don't want to be your apprentice."

"Sadly," a mock frown of sympathy, "after tonight, your feelings won't hold much sway over me."

"I'll fight you," Harry warned. He raised his hands, pulling in magic as he squared his shoulder to face the older man.

Gringwad did not move.

"I'll destroy you, old man," Harry growled.

A sharp needle of pain jabbed in the back of his neck.

He barely had time to reach back and pluck out the two-inch dart before his legs buckled and he collapsed to the floor.

He gasped and managed to roll on his side, but after that his muscles no longer worked.

Gringwad calmly stepped out him and picked up the dart. "This was right behind you since I stepped into this place. You didn't even bother creating a protection charm on your person. Someone could have attacked you in the night and killed you before your magic could react."

Harry tried to reply, but his tongue wouldn't move.

"It's a paralyzing potion," Gringwad went on, "stolen of course from the manor. The spell to get it to track and hover on prey is my own invention."

Harry gave a growl between his motionless lips.

"So," Gringwad knelt beside him, "let me explain what is going to happen to you. In the future, I might explain matters that concern you or I might not. As of this very second, you are my apprentice, surrendered entirely to my will and judgment. These will help you remember that I'm in control."

Harry couldn't lift his head, but from the edge of his vision, he saw Gringwad take something silver and shiny out of his coat. Then Harry felt cold metal around his wrists, wide bands of silver around each wrist, the feeling between that of bracelets and manacles. They tightened snugly around his wrists and then lay still.

"If you try to act against me, these amulets will deliver pain to you. If you use magic against me, they will sever your hands off. Any magic you conduct will be through my instruction, and thus these amulets will not hurt you."

Harry made no sound, listening intently.

"As for where we are going, I'm taking you back to Snape."

Harry shot surprised eyes up at him.

"We're going on my boat back to England, and I'm going to drag you into the manor myself to collect the reward. Snape has offered 50,000 galleons for your returned alive and I'm taking every single coin."

Harry managed the tiniest shake of his head.

Gringwad gave a short laugh. "Imagine his humiliation as I pull you into the manor and demand the reward. He gives it to me, and then I announce that he can't keep you because of the contract you signed with me."

"No," Harry groaned from half-frozen lips.

"After that, well, I'll let you know when we get there."

Gringwad stood up. "And as for calling me 'old man' again -"

A swishing sound went through the air, and then a stripe of pain bloomed across Harry's rear. Gringwad raised the cane against, and Harry winced, but that didn't help lessen the second whack.

He wasn't sure if it was the pain or being unable to move or just the awfulness of his birthday night, but Harry's eyes filled with tears.

A third stroke and the tears spilled over.

"I'm tempted," Gringwad said somewhere above him, "to give you all seventeen strokes so you'll remember this birthday. Seeing you limp around my boat would be fitting retribution for you running off and hiding all these months."

A pause followed, and Harry braced himself for fourteen more whacks.

Instead magic lifted him up to a standing position and held him up for Gringwad's inspection.

The man lifted off of Harry's wrists and tugged at the amulet. It didn't come off. He paid the same attention to the other wrist, but neither amulet budged.

"Your clothes will do. And there's nothing here to take with you."

Harry looked at the jar where he kept his money, right next to the pot of sunburn potion, but he doubted if Gringwad would care about a handful of cedis. And the two new bottles of purified water would just go to waste.

Gringwad spun around and went out, and Harry felt the floating magic move him along, keeping his bare feet a few inches above the ground. They went towards the water, but no one was out on the dark night.

A boat – wooden with large sails and at least forty feet long – was moored in the shallow water, but a gangplank slid out over the water to reach the sand. Gringwad went up the plank, and Harry trailed after him, managing enough control over his body to look back at his hut. The hut seemed small and pathetic in the dark.

Once on the deck, Gringwad lowered Harry to a sitting position. "I believe you had a boat in the village harbor?"

Harry nodded.

The boat pushed off the sand and moved to deeper water before following the shoreline back to the village.

Harry pointed to his boat when it came in sight. Pulling out his wand, Gringwad drew the little boat out towards them. Harry couldn't help but smile as _The Ginny_ bobbed along bravely, its reddish wood gleaming in the moonlight. He had kept that boat in smart order, and it would –

" _Incendio_!" Gringwad barked.

A spark shot out from his wand, and the little boat was covered in flames a second later.

"Hey," Harry got himself to his knees and then his feet, willing away the rest of the paralyzing potion, "that was my boat!"

He took a step towards Gringwad, but the amulets burned around his wrists as Gringwad gave him a cool look.

"Did you ever enhance it magically? Would it be something I should have turned into the Ministry as an improperly-charmed Muggle artifact?"

Harry paused, torn between the need to vent his anger and the need for self-preservation. He finally let the tingling metal around his wrists make the decision for him, and he stepped back to watch his burning boat sink into the water.

Then Gringwad shoved him below deck into a dark room with a single bunk in it and an empty bucket on the floor. Gringwad closed the door, locking him in, and Harry turned to the porthole where a glimmer of moonlight shone against the wood of the hole as the only light available.

He sat down on the bunk and stared out the porthole as he felt the boat gain speed and the waves splashed against the hull.

They were going back to Snapdragon Manor. He was going to see Snape again. See Snape for real, in the actual flesh rather than in the projected Legilimency space. He would see Snape.

And he was Gringwad's apprentice. And Gringwad was taking him to Snape.

Leaning to one side, Harry gingerly reached down and touched where the cane had landed. Even with loose capris and short underneath, the cane had left three long welts that spanned across his entire rear. He could feel the heat from each stripe, and he shuttered at the thought of taking a full seventeen from Gringwad's enthusiastic arm.

Back in the summer, Draco had admitted that Lucius caned him, and Harry had been horrified at the brutality of such a punishment. Apparently, he had been right to feel horrified because a caning made spanking feel like mere love taps. There were many problems and confusion at his current predicaments at the moment, but with undeniably clarity, Harry knew he never wanted to be caned ever again. That stood out in his mind as an absolute certainty.

As for seeing Snape . . . Harry felt something that could have been relief or fear. Maybe both. Either way, his nervousness was trying to choke him, and he couldn't control the jitters that made his hands and knees bounce in short pulses of energy. How would he ever settle down enough to sleep? Who knew what horrors Gringwad would force on him in the morning, and exhaustion would not help any of it.

This was different than the sleepless hours he had endured only in his hut; there he laid under the heavy loneliness and longed for interaction with someone. Here, he dreaded the coming morning. Ironically, he wished he had one of Snape's calming potions to sip at to soothe his frightened state at the thought of going to see Snape. Perhaps –

"If you aren't asleep," Gringwad's voice rang through the door, "in two minutes, I'm coming in there to help you calm down."

Harry lay back on the bed immediately, keeping his body still and closing his eyes.

When he heard the door open, he kept his body relaxed and face gentle as he breathed softly in what he hoped looked like sound sleep. His heart pounded in his ears, but the door shut again with the lock drawing against the wood.

He assumed he would fret all night, but the trauma of the evening caught up with him, and sleep pulled him down within a few more minutes.

HP&HP&HP&HP

By mid-morning the next day, Harry felt convinced beyond all doubt that agreeing to be Gringwad's apprentice was the worst decision he had even made. Worse than when he had tried to steal the Necklace from Malfoy Manor. Worse than lying to Snape. Worse than moving to Ghana for seven months.

Gringwad had given him two pieces of bread for breakfast. Not toast – cold, hard bread that stuck in his throat. And water.

And then Gringwad set him to scrubbing the deck of the boat.

Before going to Hogwarts, Harry had enjoyed Muggle books about adventures on the sea. _Munity above the HMS Bounty, Treasure Island, Horatio Hornblower_ – books hard for a ten-year-old, but he skipped over the words he didn't know and enjoyed the adventures. A few places the books had mentioned the drudgery of swabbing the decks, and Harry had imagined the chore as fun under the warm sun atop a sparkling sea. The cabinboys swabbed while the sailors or pirates called out orders and blew whistles, all before an attack broke out against another ship or a race started to find the treasure.

Books couldn't begin to capture the misery of scrubbing decks. Gringwad had a hand brush and wouldn't charm it into a proper mop so Harry had to get on his hands and knees. There was a bucket of suds and a bucket of clean water. He had to scrub about two square feet with the soapy water and then rinse it off with the clean water.

It was tedious, and the sun bore down on his back and calves and bare feet, and he knew a swish from Gringwad's wand could set the brush cleaning for hours without his arms pushing it.

But he didn't dare voice that. A few times Gringwad had walked by, he had ordered, "Keep going," and twice he had smacked Harry's rear with the cane. The smacks weren't as hard as the night before, but they stung over the remaining welts, and Harry did not want to risk Gringwad's temper.

While he worked, he considered mapping out an escape plan. However, it occurred to him that Gringwad might try Legilimency on him at any moment, and Harry was not about to be caught in the middle of a mental scheme to rid himself of the apprenticeship.

Finally, at noon, Gringwad transfigured several pieces of wood and a loose sail into a table, a chair, and an umbrella. He sat under the umbrella, and Harry had to wait on him for lunch.

Had to wait on him like a servant from the 1800's. Had to wait on him by holding a tray, pouring him wine and water, and then standing at strict attention while Gringwad ate a leisurely lunch.

Harry felt sorry for the cabinboys and the valets and butlers of past centuries. He wanted to feel sorry for himself, but he had to pay close attention to Gringwad because the man warned, after Harry's almost spilled the water,

"If I have to correct you again, then will be no lunch or dinner for you."

To his horror, Harry heard himself reply, "I'm so sorry, sir. I will do better."

He hadn't been this meek and contrite at Azkaban, but the one time he had tried to use magic to balance the tray, the wrist amulets had burned, and he stopped immediately. Gringwad made no comment and continued to eat.

Gringwad did let him have lunch: a piece of break, chunk of cheese, and an apple with more water.

The afternoon chores consisted of painting the masts and trimming the sails, both activities that made no sense as the boat was running on magic and not wind power. The shore was not in sight, but Harry knew they were moving at a fast clip, far faster than any sails could carry them.

When it was time to fix dinner below deck, Harry swallowed his pride and approached Gringwad.

"Sir, I have worked all day for you. May I please have a bucket of water to rinse off before dinner?"

Gringwad was directing ingredients into a bowl with his wand. "No, I plan to keep you filthy. until we reach the manor."

Harry knotted his hands into fists, but he asked in the same tone, "Then may I please have some dinner? I'm hungry, and I have a headache from being out in the sun."

"There's your dinner," Gringwad motioned to a pail on the ground.

Harry approached it trepidatiously, but it was filled with rice, chunks of meat, and veggies that didn't look too bad. He reached for the handle.

"Sit on the floor and eat," Gringwad directed.

Harry slumped down by the pail and scooped up a handful of food. He waited, praying Gringwad wouldn't tell him to put his face in it and chew like a dog.

But Gringwad turned back to his cooking, and Harry began shoveling the food in his mouth. Never had cold food tasted so good.

The next two days of sailing were simply endured. Gringwad didn't let him change or shower, and he worked his new apprentice like an animal.

A few times Harry thought about using magic, but each time he drew magic in, Gringwad would look at him and the amulets burned. Alone at night, Harry had almost tried a spell or two, but each time he lost his nerve at the thought of the bracelets cutting his hands off. He told himself he could endure another day.

Oddly enough, he never got sunburned. He thought the boat might be enchanted, but he didn't dare ask.

The fourth morning onboard, they arrived in England. Gringwad had him take down the sails, put down an anchor, and lock up the ship even though they were not close to any harbor that Harry could see. In fact, they were almost a mile off shore, but he was not going to be the one to point that out.

A breeze blew over deck as he worked, and Harry was glad as he couldn't stand the smell of himself anymore. His skin was itchy, oily, and patched with dirt and dried salt water. He had tied his hair back with a rope, but the feel of the greasy strands over his ears irritated him. But they were leaving the ship finally, and he could stand his gross state a few more hours.

Harry wondered if one could sail from Ghana to England in a matter of days as quickly as they did, but as he had in the last three days, he kept his opinion to himself.

"Time to go," Gringwad announced. He was dressed in a tailored suit and cape, clothes too hot for the summer, but obviously spelled to be cool and comfortable. He put a box on the deck table and opened it, revealing a small vase inside. "Portkey."

Harry stared at it. This whole time they had had a Portkey. So the whole voyage was just there to make him suffer. That was so . . . typical.

On the count of three, they both grabbed the Portkey.

It spit them in front of the gate of Snapdragon Manor.


	7. Reunion

Harry gazed up at iron-wrought gate which bore the large initials SM. Through the ironwork, he could see the drive winding up to Snapdragon Manor.

The last time he had been here, it was January and the frigid air felt crisp in the gray gloom. Now, the warmth of August and the moisture of the foliage made his glasses fog slightly.

The gates swung open, and Gringwad grabbed Harry's arm and began striding up the drive.

In the months on the beach, Harry had spent many evenings planned his return to the manor. Sometimes he pictured himself marching up the front steps and blowing up the door. He might shout at Snape, threaten him, challenge him to a duel. (Not sure what they would duel about, but that was a trifle to sort out later.) Sometimes he imagined himself sneaking in and living at the manor, hidden and unknown. He might spring out at any time and mock Snape for his inattention at having someone hide in his house for so long. He had practiced speeches, had imaginary fights in his head, even acted out the stance that annoyed Snape the most – shoulders slumped and body jutted to one side in lazy disregard.

Not once had he imagined that Gringwad would drag him back like a bounty prize.

He didn't even fight the man, just let himself be pulled over the stones of the drive and up to the closed front door.

Gringwad reached for the knocker, but the door swung open before he could touch it. Gringwad strode in, pulling Harry behind him, and the door swung shut with an ominous thud.

Outside, the bright light and the fog of his glasses had made him squint, but inside he blinked rapidly to adjust to the change. The marble felt cool to his bare feet, and he glanced around the room, noticing things he had forgotten: the curved top of the windows, the pictures on the wall, the paint behind the stairs and the balcony which was slightly different from the other paint where he and Draco had played their trick last summer.

"No one here," Gringwad scoffed. "Wants to make an entrance I suppose. Ah, here it is."

At the top of stairs, Snape stepped out. Narcissa came beside him and draped her hand around Snape's crooked elbow.

An entrance was the correct term as Harry felt slightly awed at how polished and grand they looked. Snape wore a dark suit with a white collar and sleeves peeping out, his hair pulled back into a short tail. He looked healthier than Harry had ever seen him: less sallow, cheeks fuller and full of color, eyes keen and vibrant.

As for Narcissa – well, Lady of the Manor sprung to mind. A mix of old-world beauty with new-world money, in a dark blue dress that drew out the curve and strength of her form, radiating confidence and power.

Another motion at the top – Draco was there, less formally dressed, but with the same ease and steadfastness as he followed Snape and his mother.

And then there was Miriam behind Draco.

Harry froze.

Was he about to be taken back to St. Mango's? She was here wearing her nurse uniform and that meant Snape was in league with St. Mungo's.

A split second later, he realized she wasn't wearing a nurse's uniform, not exactly. She had a light blue dress on with a white apron over it, but she was different, missing the head cap.

He noticed this in mere seconds, and then Snape and Narcissa were mere feet away. Everyone had a blank face, and Snape simply lifted his eyebrows.

"How may I help you?" the question directed to Gringwad.

"I'm here to collect the reward," Gringwad's voice has a smirk though Harry didn't dare look at him. In fact, Harry couldn't really look at anyone. He dropped his gaze to the floor and wished for the hundredth time that he would just wake up from this nightmare.

"I see you found him," Snape's voice was cold and removed. "May I ask where?"

"He was in a fishing village in Ghana. I've had a tracker on him since Azkaban."

"You visited him there," Snape said, more of a statement than a question. "You were in disguise?"

"No, I find I get more truth from people when I show up as myself."

"You want the money for him? I can have the gold transferred from Gringotts as soon as I test that he's really him and not under Polyjuice or an enchantment spell."

"Perfectly fair. But I'm leaving with him as well. He signed the contract."

"No," Harry's head shot up, "I didn't! He found the one from January. And he used these," Harry lifted his arms to show the manacles, "to capture me. I did not sign anything."

"I have the contract," Gringwad pulled out the parchment. "We can spend a year arguing over the legality of it at Ministry, but then everyone will know that Harry Potter is back and that will be . . . awkward. I'm guessing Azkaban won't have him back, so he'll have to be put to sleep until we can decide who has rightful ownership of him."

Harry glanced at Snape, but the man wasn't showing anything. Draco and Miriam wore blank expressions as well.

"These conversations are always so uncomfortable," Narcissa spoke for the first time. "But I insist we all remain civil. Nanny," this over her shoulder to Miriam, "will you arrange for tea in the drawing room?"

Miriam stepped away, but Narcissa smiled calmly.

"Obviously, Severus will need to test the boy alone. We will give them some privacy. Surely you will escort me to have tea, Mr. -?"

"Gringwad."

"Pardon my flighty memory. We will have tea, and Draco and Nanny can join us as chaperons. I'm no longer married, you see."

"Impossible," Gringwad smiled just cunningly. "A woman such as yourself is never unattached."

Narcissa laughed. "I never said I was unattached. Shall we?"

To Harry's surprise, Gringwad offered his arm and she went off with him, Draco following them.

Snape moved in the other direction, and Harry instinctively followed. They went into the dining room, and Snape shut the door behind them.

"I can explain," Harry rushed out.

"I don't want to hear your explanation," Snape walked towards the table. "These are all your problems now. He'll get his money, and you can be his apprentice."

"I don't want to be his apprentice. I don't want any of this. I was just sitting there in my hut and he burst in on birthday and he paralyzed me and he put me in these chain things and if I don't listen to him or if I use magic at all, they're going to cut my hands off."

Snape had stopped, but he turned back, arms crossed. "I don't see how any of this is my problem. The money is regretful, but I've petitioned Gringotts for control of your parents' account as you've been listed as a criminal, a fugitive, and a lunatic. I consider 50,000 galleons as a reasonable payment to be done with this headache."

That hurt, but Harry swallowed and didn't say anything.

"You have a few belongings here that you're welcomed to, and as soon as you leave, I have every obligation to contact the Ministry as to your whereabouts. After that, I will consider the last fourteen months as a necessary trial to get rid of Voldemort and start a new chapter of my life. If you like, we can shake on it so you'll be free to start your apprenticeship. He's already done an exemplary job taking care of you."

Snape waved a dismissive hand at him, and Harry almost stopped breathing.

He was standing there, barefoot and in tatters, smelling so bad he almost gagged, hungry, thirsty, and with the beginnings of a horrible headache.

"It's – it's not fair," the words hurt to say.

"Adulthood is not fair."

"You – you won't even let me explain."

"Why do I want an explanation from you? This is over, and I can rip up the adoption papers, too. I don't consider you to be my -"

"No! Don't say it. I'm not listening to you say it. You say it, and I'll – I'll tear this room apart like I did in January. I would have escaped from Gringwad days ago, but he trapped me. And he only trapped me because you left me."

Snape pressed his lips together as if to stop himself from speaking before Harry was finished.

"You left me in Azkaban. And before that, you died and left me alone. You did all that, and now you're mad because Gringwad found me and trapped me, something you could never do. He's trapped my magic, and – and now I have to do whatever he wants, which means he wins. He wins, and you can't bear that!"

Snape didn't move. And then, he lunged at the table, grabbed a knife, and flung it at Harry.

Harry didn't even realize he moved. He flung his hands up to protect his face.

The magic that ripped through the room was so powerful it cracked two windows, shook the pictures on the wall, and knocked over four chairs. Snape was thrown against a wall. The metal manacles crumbled from Harry's wrists, twisting into pieces of small metal and raining down on the wooden floor.

Harry brought his arms down, staring at his free wrists.

"What? What . . . happened? I can use magic? These things . . . they didn't work?"

Snape stood up. "You stupid boy. You stupid, gullible, believe-anything-you're-told boy!"

Harry dashed around the fallen chairs, placing himself on the opposite side of the table. Snape stalked towards him, but Harry countered the movement so that he still had the table between him and Snape.

"I am going to flay you alive," Snape said.

So many feelings hit Harry at that moment. Relief – he wasn't under Gringwad's control anymore. Comfort – Snape was talking to him. Fear – Snape had that look and tone that meant he was about to deliver something awful. Confusion – how had he gotten here in trouble yet again?

"All right, all right, wait! I don't understand. The manacles hurt when I tried to use magic."

"Were you near him when you tried? He probably charmed them to give off sparks when he controlled them. Did you ever use magic when he wasn't there?"

"No, I was too scared. But – but," he hurried to get the words out before Snape could react, "I didn't want my hands cut off. Without hands, I'm useless."

"You have Voldemort's power, and you think some dinky bracelets are going to stop you?"

"My magic didn't react to protect me like it just did now!"

"Were you actually in danger?"

"Yes," Harry edged to the right side of the table when it looked like Snape might make a break to rush around it. "I had to scrub his ship, and he barely let me have any food or sleep and he wouldn't me wash up and -"

"I didn't ask if you were uncomfortable," Snape was scathing. "He knew to keep you from real injury because your magic isn't going to let you get seriously hurt."

"He paralyzed me with a dart the night of my birthday. He hit me with his cane, and then kidnapped me, and then made me work for hours. It was terrible."

"Was it? Or was it the kind of dramatic suffering you always seek out?"

"I do not seek out dramatic suffering."

"You and your magic love this sort of thing," Snape was relentless. "A demented man from your past shows up to take you prisoner and enslave you and spent – what? Three days on a boat working?"

"It was four!"

"You don't look sunburnt or starving so I'm guessing he amused himself by seeing how long he could humiliate and discomfort you in little ways before you broke free. I know exactly how you looked then – the poor Harry Potter whom everyone mistreats and orders about, so he shuffles off to pity himself, all crouching and head-hung."

"I don't do that!"

"You're doing it now. You're almost as tall as I am, you have more physical strength than anyone in this house, not to mention magic, and you try to make yourself small and inconspicuous like you're that skinny eleven-year-old again."

It was so terrible to spoke to that way, mocked and ridiculed. Insufferable and it made absolutely no sense that Harry wanted to smile and bask in the warmth that filled his entire self. It was a sense of relief he hadn't felt in months.

"I don't crouch. This is how I stand," Harry tried to remain combative.

"You need a small amount of misery to keep you focused. When life is too ordinary or easy, you chase after a new challenge that is sure to make all of us miserable with you. There is no waiting or patience from your part. You weren't even in Azkaban a week before you destroyed half of it."

"I – I – no, it had to be more than a week. And you left me there to rot."

"That's not what my message said."

Harry paused. This was new information and he must proceed slowly. "Yes, your message. Your message said you were leaving me."

"No, my note in the box with the pocketwatch. My note said something along the lines that I was sorry I couldn't keep you out of Azkaban -"

"And you were sending someone to watch over me who was Ginny."

"Yes, but the important part was _Just take every day one at a time._ "

Harry said nothing.

"It was so obvious that I was sure someone would catch you and then realize what I meant."

Harry scrambled to think, but he tried to keep his face neutral.

"One at a time?" Snape lifted an eyebrow. "I send it with the pocketwatch? The message was in the pocketwatch?"

"Oh, the pocketwatch," Harry nodded. "Of course, I saw the message in the pocketwatch. That's so obvious – I mean, I expected more from a spy, but . . . you were pressured and time constraints and other stuff."

Snape looked squarely at him. "What did the message in the pocketwatch say?"

"It said," Harry winced at how loud and deliberate his own voice sounded, "that I should trust you. And I did. And that's why I'm here. To forgive and forget."

"What was the message?" icy and low.

"Uh, so I didn't actually see a message. The pocketwatch got dropped and crushed by, uh, things."

"You smashed the pocketwatch that I gave you for your birthday and that I send to you with an encrypted note and a message inside?"

"See," Harry leaned forward, "I've never been very good with hidden meanings and all that. Next time, hand me the box and say, 'There's a message in the pocketwatch.' I'll probably get it then."

Snape withdrew his wand and made a downward motion with his hands. The table broke in half. Snape moved his hands to his side and the table parts toppled to opposite sides of the room. He stepped towards Harry.

"No, wait a minute," Harry backed up slowly. "Let's just react calmly here. If I think I'm in danger, I'm going to use my magic against you."

"If I so much as feel the air moving around you, I'm kicking you and that blackguard out so fast you'll think I Apparated you away," Snape kept coming for him.

"Fair, fair," Harry stepped back as the distance between them closed. "I misjudged things. I didn't think, and I should have trusted you, but you should have let me know more things. If you had laid out a plan and gotten it to me -"

"As a hidden message?" Snape's eyes gleamed with fury.

Harry's back hit the wall. "I – I smell awful and I'm so dirty and filthy. You don't want to mess up your hands. Everything looks so nice here and I'm probably getting mud all over this wall."

"I'll have it cleaned." Snape unbuttoned his coat and took it off. His white shirt had a small cravat around the throat, and a red ruby with the letters SM in gold pinned it in the center. He unbuttoned one sleeve and then the other, rolling up his cuffs to his elbows.

"Roughing me up won't help," Harry tried one last plea. "We still have to deal with Gringwad and the apprenticeship thing. I can use magic, but the contract and he said . . ."

"Gringwad is here because you brought him here. The only reason he is in our lives is because you found him and involved him. I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing such a despicable creature."

"You were scattered?" Harry eyed the distance to the door.

"Move an inch and you will be very, very sorry."

Harry took a deep breath and lowered his head.

Snape grabbed him by the collar and smacked him on the head with his wand. Harry flinched away reflectively, trying to protect his head, but Snape smacked him on the arm, the shoulder, the hip, before landing heavier whacks on his rear.

"You are unbelievably stupid. Stupid, thoughtless, careless, inept. I consider the universe beastly unfair for letting you get away with the nonsense you pull unscathed. And since the universe and the higher powers and any other magic floating about see fit to let you survive and think you've outwitted the fates, I will be the one to correct that illusion. I will be the one standing here to set your back on the straight and narrow course. You hid from me for seven months? You are getting punished for every month you were gone, added to the punishments you've already tallied up. That's right – the desk is still in the center of the family room."

Snape's wand was thwacking him solidly, and Harry tried to keep still.

"It isn't fair," he finally wailed. "I'm always working from - from limited information."

"That's right," Snape had a hand on his shoulder and pressed down. Harry bend to accommodate, knowing that only made his rear a more-accessible target. "You only get limited information"-WHACK, WHACK, WHACK -"when you leave for seven months."

"But," Harry breathed out a long breath as the sting mounted, "I had limited information before that."

"That's what happens when you're sixteen and still learning!"

Snape's wand had a bite to it, and Harry wished it might snap in two, just so Snape could see how harsh he was being.

"I can feel your magic," Snape's voice warned above him.

Harry grabbed the top of his knees for support as he retorted, "I'm trying to stay still. It isn't easy to do this when I just got back, I'm so confused over everything, new people are here, and I don't know what's happened in the Wizarding World since I left -"

"This is why you don't leave," Snape undercut each word with a smack.

"Agh!" Harry leaned his weight from one foot to another. "You could at least put the table back together and let me lean over it."

"I'm not giving you an inch," this statement only had one whack at the end, but Harry hardly felt grateful.

"This better count as one of the months," he muttered.

Snape pulled him up to stand straight.

Snape had been right: they were about the same height. And he probably was stronger than Snape, maybe faster, too.

Those thoughts just made him pout and reach back to rub the smart out. Somehow, it was better when he thought Snape could overpower him at any time and that he had to accept to accept punishment because the man could outfight him. Now, it meant he went along with punishment because – well, just because! There was not the smallest chance in the world that he needed punishment, or appreciated it, or recognized how it helped him.

"I'm still angry at you," Snape pointed a finger at him. "I'm furious with the decisions you've made. Absolutely furious."

Harry just nodded, trying his best not to crouch or hang his head.

"Now, the next step."

Snape made for the door, and Harry followed.

They went into the drawing room where Narcissa and Draco were on the sofa while Miriam and Gringwad had their own chairs. Everyone held a teacup and saucer; on the table were trays and tiers of petite fours, triangle sandwiches, and other nibbles.

Harry held up his bare wrists defiantly. "So those were a prank?"

Gringwad let out a burst of laughter. "Oh, you figure them out? You should have seen him," this to Narcissa and Draco. "He thought I controlled his magic. He was all scared and nervous because he thought they – oh, this is marvelous – he thought they would cut off his hands."

"There have been other cursed pieces of jewelry," Harry said to the room at large. "How was I supposed to know those things weren't real?"

"The best part," Gringwad went on, "was when he ate out of a bucket on the floor. It was like something out of _Oliver Twist_. Look at him. He's as strong as an ox, the most powerful wizard ever lived, and he was all, "Please, sir, may I have some food?"

"If anyone laughs, I'm going to blow up this room," Harry threatened.

"All right, I had my joke," Gringwad set his cup aside. "He didn't grow up with magic and apparently he can't be bothered to learn like that one over did."

Gringwad motioned to the corner. Harry realized with a start that Hermione was sitting in a seat with a cup and saucer balanced on a book. She gave him a small smile.

"Hi, Harry. Welcome home."

He hadn't seen Hermione since the trial, and he stammered,

"But – but I thought you were – I mean . . ."

"It's really too embarrassing to watch," Gringwad said. "Nanny, if you would be so good to take him upstairs and scrub him while we have a talk here. The sight and smell are really intolerable."

Snape nodded, and Miriam stood up.

"A haircut, too," Narcissa suggested. She raised her teacup with her left hand, and then Harry saw it.

A ring. With a bright red ruby. The letters SM. On the ring finger of her left hand.


End file.
